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 The trinity of evil 
 
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THE TRINITY OF EVIL. 
 
THE 
 
 TRINITY OF EVIL. 
 
 I. INFIDELITY. 
 11. IMPURITY. 
 III. INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 CANON WILBKRFORCE. M.A 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 Joubou : 
 HODDER AM' ^TOUOHTON 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXVI. 
 
 \A II rights reserved.] 
 
Btitler &= Tanner, 
 
 The Selwood Printing IVorks, 
 
 Frotne, and London. 
 
^.xalSftxV^^ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ^ I ^HE three articles which follow, 
 upon Infidelity, Impurity, ana In- 
 temperance, reprinted by request, are, 
 with the exception of the appendix to 
 the last, part of a series entitled "Topics 
 of the Times," published in the Chris- 
 tian Commojiwealth, a journal con- 
 spicuous for its courageous advocacy of 
 right and truth, and deservedly com- 
 manding an extensive circulation. They 
 assume no pretension to be other than 
 popular, and represent a slight attempt 
 to consider the duty of the Christian 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 towards three dangerous developments 
 of evil In our day. 
 
 The key-note of the whole series in 
 the Christian Commonwealth was struck 
 in the first article, in the words of 
 St. Paul, " Our citizenship is In heaven " 
 (Phil. Hi. 20), and the underlying 
 thought in all is, that Christ hath pro- 
 vided by means of^. the living mem- 
 bers of His Body a counteracting 
 agency to the ever increasing moral 
 degradation of the natural man. It is 
 essential to observe, that, without ven- 
 turing upon a definition of the Church, 
 It Is assumed that a '' citizen of heaven " 
 is not merely one who has accepted the 
 profession of Christianity and Identified 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 himself with some external organization 
 under the benediction of Rome, Con- 
 stantinople, or Canterbury, but one who, 
 having come in all conscious weakness 
 to the living Lord Jesus, who is exalted 
 to be a Prince and a Saviour, is in 
 Christ by faith ; such an one, though 
 his realization of it may be clouded and 
 dim, though he may be conscious of 
 much imperfection, is nevertheless one 
 who is ''in Christ before God, and for 
 Christ before men ; " he is the heavenly 
 citizen, that is, he has a residence, a 
 life, a duty in one condition of being, 
 or world, and a citizenship and home 
 in another. A Christian of this stamp, 
 possessing the secret of a quiet mind 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 and the impulse of an active life, will 
 be used by His Master in saving souls 
 from sin, guiding men into truth, making 
 lives and homes brighter, happier, purer, 
 by bringing into them the peace of God 
 which passeth all understanding. 
 
 This principle of counteraction is a 
 universal ideal ever in process of realiza- 
 tion. In our bodies are powerful acids 
 and chemical forces, which would de- 
 stroy us If they were not neutralized by 
 the presence of the mystery of life ; 
 against life they have no power : simi- 
 larly, the forces of evil within the 
 believer are neutralized by the presence 
 of Him who is the life, and apart 
 from Him we can do nothing. SimI- 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 larly, again, the destructive and cor- 
 ruptive influences in the world can only 
 be effectively checked by the bene- 
 diction-giving and humanity-exalting 
 influences of the Christ manifested in 
 His people, to whom He has said, ''Ye 
 are the salt of the earth." This anti- 
 septic influence of believers is actively 
 but secretly operating. In all ranks 
 there are men and women with hearts 
 loyally devoted to a personal Lord Jesus, 
 working secretly like the leaven hidden 
 in the meal, to whom it is virtually said, 
 ''Fear not, Paul, I have given thee them 
 that sail with thee." 
 
 It is to be hoped that some who pro- 
 fess and call themselves Christians, will 
 
X Preface. 
 
 be led to consider the grave question 
 how far they are in this sense ** citizens 
 of heaven." The name Christian has 
 been secularized and profaned, the 
 ethical system implied by it discredited 
 and dishonoured, not through opponents 
 but through exponents. It is signifi- 
 cant that the natives blessed by the 
 missionary labours of Dr. Judson, ever 
 declined to speak of him as Christian : 
 the name savoured of rum and the 
 slave-trade ; but recognising in him the 
 living embodiment of his creed, they 
 called him ** the Jesus-Christ man." 
 Upon the true "Jesus-Christ men" will 
 devolve the duty of counteracting In- 
 fidelity, Impurity, and Intemperance. 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 The position accorded in the Trinity 
 of Evil to InfideHty may be considered 
 open to criticism, and in a general sense 
 it might perhaps be affirmed that a 
 man's opinions have no direct effect 
 upon the morality of his actions ; never- 
 theless the heart is affected by the head, 
 and the heart is the mainspring of con- 
 duct; certainly it does not appear to 
 have been given to the deniers of the 
 faith to bless, enlighten, and elevate 
 mankind. We are prepared, however, 
 with abundant proof that the tendency 
 of modern atheism Is directly Immoral, 
 and that audacity of opinion not Infre- 
 quently leads to atrocity of conduct. It 
 is impossible, consistent with necessary 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 reticence, to do much more than hint at 
 this branch of the subject ; but from 
 a work entitled *' Elements of Social 
 Science," amongst numerous paragraphs 
 too gross for repetition, I extract the 
 following, " Chastity, so far from being a 
 virtue, is invariably a great natural sin." 
 '* Prostitution should be regarded as 
 a valuable substitute for a better state 
 of things ; " and in a pamphlet from 
 the pen of the most prominent and 
 aggressive unbeliever of the day the 
 following expression occurs, referring to 
 the *' Elements of Social Science " : 
 ** This work I specially recommend." 
 
 The article upon Impurity was 
 published previous to the actual com- 
 
Preface. xiii 
 
 mencement of the recent government 
 prosecution of Mr. Stead. To know 
 that Mr. Stead, a man remarkable for 
 tender sympathy and self-sacrificing 
 readiness to succour the wronged, and 
 whose lofty motives Mr. Justice Lopes 
 pronounced unimpeachable, Is actually 
 in prison, whilst the notorious Mrs. 
 Jeffries, the procuress for a dissolute 
 plutocracy, is not only at large without 
 bail, but once more pursuing her ini- 
 quitous traffic to the open scandal of 
 her neighbours, is a grievous shock to 
 the moral sense. Mr. Stead is a can- 
 didate for our admiration rather than 
 our pity. " Patiently to suffer for the 
 truth's sake," Is to '' lay up a more 
 
xiv Preface. 
 
 exceeding weight of glory ; " the fierce 
 execrations of the Attorney- General will 
 not harm him. When *' Balaam is 
 hired against" a man that he might 
 curse him, " the Lord turns the curse 
 into a blessing" (Neh. xiii. 2). 
 
 It Is satisfactory to know that, amidst 
 all the decay and Inability to distinguish 
 between right and wrong characteristic 
 of modern society, the inner heart of 
 the nation is sound upon this question,; 
 and to mention Mr. Stead's name in any 
 large assembly of working men is to 
 kindle an enthusiasm bursting out into 
 cheer after cheer. It is simply un- 
 deniable that Mr. Stead's action alone 
 secured the passing of the Criminal 
 
Preface. xv 
 
 Law Amendment Act, under which 
 measure ninety-eight cases of outrage 
 have been punished In six weeks, y^r/)'- 
 seveii of which were perpetrated upon 
 little gilds under ten years of age. As 
 to the Judge's gratuitous assertion that 
 the articles in the Pall Mall '' would 
 ever be a disgrace to journalism," there 
 are tens of thousands of thinking men 
 and women who agree with the words 
 in The Christian newspaper, a journal 
 which has throughout earned the grati- 
 tude and admiration of all social re- 
 formers by its courage and ability, that 
 this irrelevant, prejudiced, and exag- 
 gerated utterance will ever remain "a 
 disgrace to jurisprudence." The ruth- 
 
xvi Preface. 
 
 lessness with which all through this 
 shameful business the true reformers 
 have been hunted out for popular ven- 
 geance, for slight errors in judgment, 
 and the vampires and voluptuaries suf- 
 fered to go free, receives an additional 
 illustration in the bitter persecution of 
 Dr. Heywood Smith. The persistent 
 attempt to blast the reputation of, and 
 extrude from every medical institute, a 
 pure-minded and honest-hearted phy- 
 sician on account of what was at its 
 worst but a generous error, is a serious 
 blot upon the honourable medical pro- 
 fession, the more especially as they 
 cordially approve of certain Acts under 
 which many thousands of women have 
 
Preface. xvii 
 
 been compulsorily exposed to medical 
 examination, with no pretence to any 
 hieh or orenerous intention. 
 
 From the fires of lust to the coal 
 mine whence they are replenished the 
 transition is natural. Thousands of 
 thinking men in the present day are be- 
 coming more and more convinced that 
 the chief agent in promoting vice and 
 social corruption is intoxicating drink, 
 which weakens the will and inflames the 
 desires, and "for the present distress" 
 are abstaining from alcohol themselves 
 and discouraging its use in others. 
 
 In an atmosphere thus heavy with 
 sensuality and corruption, the heavenly 
 citizen finds his post of duty and his 
 
xviii Pi'eface. 
 
 ^ 
 
 call for action ; true it is, that **No man 
 may deliver his brother, nor make agree- 
 ment unto God for him ; " yet are 
 we, each one of us, emphatically our 
 brother's keepers ; and, identified with 
 our Lord and Master, living in touch 
 with Him, we can become in a measure 
 our brethren's burden-bearers also. 
 That is a sweet fiction of early days, 
 which imagines Peter the apostle 
 wearily bearing the sins of the world 
 up a rugged mountain side, and meeting 
 a little child, who invites him to trans- 
 fer the burden to his infant shoulders. 
 He places his burden upon the child. 
 " Now," commands his mysterious 
 visitor, "carry me." He does so, and 
 
/ 
 
 Preface. xix 
 
 behold the burden has become as a 
 feather's weight. Thus Is " Christ in 
 us " the bearer of our burdens, and as 
 we grow up into Him in all things, 
 we, as Christ-bearers, become the bur- 
 den-bearers of others. 
 
 When the ascending Lord spoke 
 those words before the cloud at Bethany- 
 received Him out of human sight, " Ye 
 shall be witnesses unto Me," He epi- 
 tomized in a single sentence the whole 
 catalogue of the earthly duties of the 
 heavenly citizen. It is to no sentiment 
 or idea, however transcendent, to no 
 new religious philosophy, however ap- 
 parently suited to the world's need ; it 
 is to a Person, to the Lord Himself 
 
XX Preface. 
 
 as the living Friend of sinners, the one 
 conqueror of Death and Hades, that we 
 have to witness. It Is for us to con- 
 vince a fallen sinning world that there 
 IS — not there once was — One amone 
 them whom as yet they know not, and 
 whom to know Is life eternal. 
 
 God help us each one thus to witness. 
 
 " Now unto Him that is able to keep 
 us from falling, and to present us fault- 
 less before the presence of His glory 
 with exceeding joy, to the only wise 
 God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, 
 dominion and power, both now and 
 ever. Amen." 
 
 Deanery, Southampton. 
 December y 1885. 
 
INFIDELITY. 
 
I. 
 
 INFIDELITY. 
 
 " Philip saith unto him, Come and see."— St 
 John i. 46. 
 
 T)HILIP was echoing a word of Royal 
 invitation full of force and power that 
 was often on his Master's lips when he 
 answered Nathanael's justifiable scepticism 
 with the courageous sentence, Come AND 
 SEE. It is as though he had said, " I have 
 challenged the orthodox belief, I have 
 declared to you an experience beyond the 
 lines of conventionality. You ask me for 
 my proof I reply, Bestir thyself, experi- 
 mentalise, investigate, analyse, and thou 
 
The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 shalt know ; in a sentence, ' come and see.' " 
 There is nothing suggestive of timidity, 
 uncertainty, want of assurance, about this 
 bold invitation, and, God be praised ! it 
 reaches far beyond the temporary circum- 
 stances which called it forth. It stands 
 firm after the lapse of eighteen centuries 
 as a motto, an example, and an encourage- 
 ment. It is the voice of Jesus speaking 
 to the hearts of doubting, anxious, care- 
 harassed men ; it is a call to intimacy, a 
 guarantee of victory, a promise of rest ; 
 it is real, individual, and close ; it is an 
 invitation, not to a system, but to a person : 
 " Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." 
 Let us endeavour to apply this Royal 
 invitation to one of the practical difficulties 
 of modern life. I am speaking from the 
 assumption, somewhat profound, that we 
 
Infidelity. 
 
 have in a measure realized our heavenly 
 citizenship. It is well not to flinch from 
 this, for nothing can more impress the 
 stamp of consecrated purpose and practical 
 usefulness on life. To be a conscious 
 citizen of heaven, so far from emancipa- 
 ting a man from intelligent participation 
 in the duties of this earth life, accentuates 
 his corresponding obligation to be light in 
 the world and salt of the earth. If one 
 who professes that his heart is in heaven 
 is living to himself a non-illuminating life, 
 his creed is not authenticated by his con- 
 duct, and he knows not the alphabet of 
 his faith. 
 
 A man must be blind to the signs of 
 the times who knows not that we are 
 living in " a day of trouble, rebuke, and 
 blasphemy." A great and terrible cry is 
 
The Tri7iity of Evil. 
 
 rising up from a sin-polluted world. Ever 
 and anon the veil is lifted from moral 
 putrescence, which threatens to poison the 
 nation, and courts the doom of the verdict 
 of God : " Shall I not visit for these things 
 saith the Lord, and shall not My soul be 
 avenged on such a nation as this ? " 
 
 Amongst the prominent cancers of modern 
 society there stand out three taller than 
 their fellows, closely interdependent in their 
 nature, yet each so independently defiling 
 that they constitute a trinity of destructive 
 influence. They are Infidelity, Impurity, 
 and Intemperance. Of the existence of the 
 first of these, its causes, probable effects, 
 and the duty of the Christian towards it, 
 we would speak to-day. 
 
 I do not know that it would be correct 
 to say that there is now more unbelief in 
 
Infidelity. 
 
 proportion to the population than formerly, 
 but it has arrived at a new development. 
 It is more patent, more aggressive, and 
 above all more recorded, and therefore 
 more mischievous. There are, probably, not 
 more atmospheric disturbances than in days 
 gone by, but our attention is more drawn 
 to them. Storms are telegraphed from 
 America, and daily meteorological reports 
 keep the subject under our notice. Modern 
 unbelief in like manner is kept constantly 
 under our observation. At a recent census 
 in France, out of a population of twenty- 
 nine millions, seven and a-half millions 
 openly declared themselves to be of no 
 religious belief ; and in England, though 
 I am not aware of any census having been 
 attempted, there is not a town of any size 
 without its organized society of unbelievers. 
 
8 The Trmity of Evil. 
 
 A considerable proportion of the unbelief 
 of the day Is doubtless confined to frivolous 
 sceptical chatter spreading its propaganda 
 in fashionable magazines. Another moiety > 
 is undoubtedly of moral origin, In accord- 
 ance with the saying of Augustine, that a 
 man who allowed his senses to rule him 
 carried about with him five cogent argu- 
 ments against the faith. In his case the 
 lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and i 
 the pride of life choke the Word and blind 
 the spiritual perception. But there Is a 
 sufficiently formidable residuum which is 
 not necessarily immoral, and is serious, 
 determined, and aggressive. 
 
 If we permit ourselves to inquire into 
 the more prominent causes for the spread 
 of unbelief, I fear the true and reasonable 
 conclusion will bring shame to many of us. 
 
Infidelity. 
 
 How much, for example, Is directly to be 
 attributed to the utterly unsplrltual lives 
 of professed believers ? How much to the 
 unacting orthodoxy of rigid dogmatists 
 who, while adhering to the letter of Catholic 
 tradition, will not stretch out a finger to 
 assist In removing evils which are turning 
 this world Into a gaol, a lazar - house, 
 a hell for millions ? How much to the 
 healthy revolt of a developing humanity 
 against cramping sacerdotalisms, soul- 
 withering limitations, and theological cari- 
 catures of the Divine Being ? How much 
 to the timid, grudging, persecuting attitude 
 adopted in times past by men of religion 
 to the researches of science ? Surely it is 
 with a tender hand that the ecclesiastical 
 descendants of the men who in the name 
 of the Lord burnt Bruno and persecuted 
 
lo The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 Galileo, and sinned against " Him without 
 whom nothing was made " by quenching 
 the light of science, should deal with un- 
 belief. When tempted to be harsh, dog- 
 matic, and contemptuous towards those who 
 are unwisely, under the name of Agnosticism, 
 imagining that they can bow Almighty God 
 out of His own universe, they should re- 
 member that science has had her martyrs, 
 and at the hand of theologians, and that it 
 was Augustine, the beloved of the Catholic 
 Church, the theologian of the giant intellect, 
 who by pronouncing an anathema upon all 
 who affirmed the existence of antipodes, 
 threw the arm of ecclesiastical sanction 
 around error, and strengthened the hands of 
 the thrice-accursed Inquisition in burning 
 and torturing those who were the pioneers 
 of the world's light, liberty, and knowledge. 
 
Infidelity. 1 1 
 
 What will be the probable effect of a wide- 
 spread and somewhat arrogant denial of the 
 faith ? Upon the Church, the invisible 
 Body of Christ, its effect must needs be stimu- 
 lating and purifying ; the progress of vital 
 faith is advanced, and its pungency, as salt 
 of the earth, intensified, by constant question- 
 ing and sifting. A period of toleration and 
 patronage exercises a soporific influence on 
 the heavenly citizen, and the vitality and 
 the sin-resisting power of Christ's mystical 
 body are suspended in proportion as its 
 mighty truths are imprisoned by limiting 
 definitions or crystallised into dogmas to be 
 received without conviction upon authority. 
 A pillar of the early Church is credited with 
 the saying that if the word " Trinity " had 
 never been invented the thing signified by 
 the word would probably never have been 
 
12 TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 doubted. Is there not a moiety of truth in 
 his utterance? has not the desire for a definite 
 dogma imprisoned within the walls of a series 
 of propositions led to a species of Tritheism, 
 from which that which is wrongly denomina- 
 ted Unitarianism — for so far as we can judge 
 this form of negation does not teach the 
 " unity " but the " unicity " of God— is a not 
 unnatural recoil ? Whereas the " thing signi- 
 fied," namely, the Tripartite oneness of the 
 Divine Being, is "clearly seen, being perceived 
 through the things that are made" (Rom. i. 
 20). And " trinity in unity " is found every- 
 where an incontrovertible fact amidst the 
 verities of nature, using nature in its widest 
 sense, comprehending all that is "in the 
 round ocean, and the living air, and the blue 
 sky, and in the mind of man." I think we 
 may say that the atheism of the day, with its 
 
Infidelity, 1 3 
 
 unsparing criticism, and its determined icono- 
 clasm, though it may shake visible churches 
 to their foundations, will leave the true faith, 
 stripped of human accretions, purer than it 
 found it. We read of a devouring fire de- 
 stroying many homesteads and vineyards in 
 the Pyrenees, but opening by its heat deep 
 fissures through which gleamed molten silver 
 hitherto unknown. May it thus be with the 
 Body of Christ. May the fire of attack drive 
 many to open confession and strengthen the 
 faith by increasing the reality of the witness. > 
 
 When, however, we come to consider the 
 probable effect of atheism on the nation, we 
 can only view it as an unmixed evil. Those 
 best qualified to form an opinion have again 
 and again declared that atheism, inasmuch 
 as it is a determined foe to liberty. Is nation- 
 ally destructive. " God," said a master mind 
 
TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 of France, at the close of the great revolution, 
 " is as necessary to a nation as liberty." 
 Voltaire, the very patron saint of atheists, 
 
 |y has emphasized this thought in the following 
 pungent sentences : " If the world were 
 governed by atheists, it would be as well 
 to be under the immediate rule of those 
 infernal beings who are depicted to us full 
 of fury against their victims. In a word, 
 atheists who have power in their hands 
 would be as mischievous to the human race 
 as superstitious persons ; certainly their prin- 
 ciples will not be opposed to the assassinations 
 and poisonings which will seem necessary. 
 They must tend to all crimes in the storms of 
 life. The atheist, crafty, ungrateful, calumni- 
 ous, plundering, bloody, reasons and acts as 
 
 I if he is sure of impunity on the part of men. 
 For if there is no God the monster is his own 
 
Infidelity. 1 5 
 
 ^ 
 
 god ; he immolates to himself whatever he 
 desires or whatever is an obstacle in his way. 
 The most tender prayers, the best reason, 
 make no impression upon him." (" Works," 
 ^ Vol. I. pages 136-139. Paris, 1837 edition.) 
 To the testimony of Voltaire we may add the 
 recent experience of the ribald blasphemy for 
 which the editor of an infidel newspaper was 
 (unwisely as we think) imprisoned, together 
 with the soul-destroying immoralities incul- 
 cated in " The Fruits of Philosophy," and the 
 conclusion at which we arrive is that for men 
 who profess to long for national progress 
 under the attractive watchwords of Liberty, 
 Fraternity, Equality, to encourage or trifle 
 with atheism is politically as suicidal as 
 morally it is discreditable. 
 
 On the other hand, we are convinced that 
 tlie Gospel is the nursery of liberty. " My 
 
1 6 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 model," said a statesman recently, " is Oliver 
 Cromwell." " Mine," replied his friend, also 
 a member of Parliament, "is Jesus Christ." 
 He was right. The man who, in the exercise 
 of the franchise or the wielding of political 
 influence, has resolved to stand on the prin- 
 ciples of Jesus Christ, is the best friend of his 
 country that his country can have. Lord 
 Shaftesbury records how he heard Lord 
 Macaulay, in the House of Commons, declare 
 that "the man who speaks or writes a syllable V 
 against Christianity is guilty of high treason / 
 against the civilization of mankind ; " and 
 Froude, in his essay on Calvinism, expresses 
 the same thought when he says, "All that \ 
 we call modern civilization in a sense which l 
 deserves the name is the visible expression of/ 
 the transforming power of the Gospel." It 
 would be a labour of love to trace the truth 
 
htfidelity. 
 
 of this proposition down the ages. In spite 
 of the not infrequent, reactionary, and bar- 
 barous cruelties of the visible Church, which 
 in its excommunications and persecutions 
 sinned more against Christianity than 
 humanity, we can recognise that every step 
 in moral and political progress may be traced 
 back to the Babe of Bethlehem, who, though 
 He never promoted a single rebellion, and 
 never formulated revolutionary propaganda, 
 quietly sowed moral seed and gave impulses 
 to human thought which have changed the 
 aspect of the world, and will, in the end, 
 subdue all things to God. 
 
 Mirabeau, when he was asked how he 
 would inculcate the principles of national 
 liberty, replied that he would begin with the 
 infant in the cradle and let his first lisping 
 utterance be the name of Washington. The 
 
 c 
 
1 8 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 believer will rise higher than this, and say, 
 Would you have a nation free indeed — 
 politically, socially, morally, blessedly free ; 
 would you witness the spread of principles 
 that must inevitably, if they have free play, 
 overturn all despotisms and crush out more 
 than half the sorrows of human nature : 
 begin with the infants in the cradles, and 
 let the first name they lisp be the all-pre- 
 vailing name of Jesus : the Divine Regene- 
 rator of the world, the Infinite and Eternal 
 Head of humanity, the Immanuel, God 
 with us ; for " If the Son of God shall 
 make you free, then shall you be free 
 indeed." 
 
 It remains for us to consider the impor- 
 tant question of the duty of the heavenly 
 citizen towards prevailing unbelief And 
 first, he must be deeply convinced of the 
 
Infidelity. 
 
 truth of the proposition, Magna est Veritas 
 et prcBvalebit. In "contending earnestly for 
 the faith once delivered to the saints," his 
 contention will be rather to persuade man 
 than to defend God ; not, Uzzah-like, to 
 imagine that he will uphold that which is 
 tottering. This reflection will free him from 
 timidity as to any supposed conflict between 
 science and revelation. "Without Him was 
 not anything made that was made." The 
 investigating faculty of man is the boring 
 tool whereby the glories of the living God 
 are dug out of His mines, and in the re- 
 verent pursuit of natural science the thoughts 
 of God become visible. The study of Zoo- 
 logy* Geology, and Ichthyology are directly 
 prescribed to us in the book of Job as 
 stepping-stones to the knowledge of God : 
 " Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach 
 
20 , The Trinity of Evil 
 
 thee ; and the fowls of the air, and they 
 shall tell thee ; or, speak to the earth and 
 it shall teach thee ; and the fishes of the 
 sea shall declare unto thee" (Job xii. 7). 
 Noble-hearted Charles Kingsley, whose truly 
 great mind pushed its way upwards through 
 the false sophisms and intellectual entangle- 
 ments of the age, drank deep of the cup of 
 science, and the light of the Spirit of God 
 within him was fed by the flame ; with his 
 own lips he told me that it had brought 
 him nearer to his God, and his dying words, 
 so calm and true and trusting, were the 
 witness that he was passing to an endless 
 life with God. It is a libel upon true science 
 that it can ever rob us of our Father ; nay, 
 rather has it unveiled Him ; and it behoves 
 us publicly to thank science for what it has 
 done : it has swept away cobwebs, it has 
 
Infidelity. 21 
 
 cleared the atmosphere of false gods and 
 superstitions ; by its discovery of evolution 
 (if evolution be true) it has brought us 
 even more face to face with an intelligent, 
 thinking all-producer, than direct creation. 
 If we may credit the Rev. Joseph Cook, of 
 Boston, a marked decline of rationalism in 
 the German universities has been the direct 
 fruit of its labours ; by its disproof of 
 spontaneous generation, its demonstration of 
 the continuity of the laws of life, the promi- 
 nence it has given to adaptation, causation, 
 and design in nature, it has driven the 
 coarser atheism of the past to assume a 
 softer title ; and if David in days of com- 
 parative scientific darkness wrote, " The fool 
 hath said in his heart, There is no God," 
 modern research, when carried to its logical 
 issue, through microscope, spectroscope, tele- 
 
22 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 scope, and scalpel, deliberately and scien- 
 tifically replies — Amen. 
 
 Secondly, the heavenly citizen will do well 
 to counteract infidel propaganda through the 
 printing press ; the tracts and leaflets of 
 the " Christian Evidence " Society should be 
 widely distributed, and it would be expedient 
 for all who are interested in working men's 
 clubs and mechanics' institutes to supply 
 them freely with the admirable and instruc- 
 tive pamphlets written by Mr. Hastings, of 
 Boston, and sold by Messrs. Bagster under 
 the title of "The Anti-Infidel Library." 
 One of these tracts, upon " The Inspiration 
 of the Bible," is one of the most pungent 
 and useful ever published. The method of 
 counteracting unbelief by public debate be- 
 tween selected champions is eminently un- 
 satisfactory. The sharp intellectual fencing 
 
Infidelity. 23 
 
 necessary savours too much of the "king- 
 doms of this world." But where the 
 Christian champion flinches not from Saul's 
 armour, and can condescend to his adver- 
 saries' weapons, though the spectacle is not 
 edifying the victory is sure, as may be 
 proved by a study of the shorthand writer's 
 report of the celebrated '' South Place 
 Debate " between Mr. Bradlaugh and the 
 Rev. Brewin Grant. 
 
 But, thirdly, non tali mixilio, these are not 
 the characteristic weapons of a true citizen 
 of heaven ; with them he may silence, not 
 convince ; confound, not convert the denier 
 of the faith. He differs even from the 
 patriot and the philanthropist, in that to 
 him believing is not an intellectual but a 
 spiritual process. They who know the 
 "secret of the Lord" will rather lead the 
 
24 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 anxious doubter away from systems, con- 
 troversies, and debates into the presence of 
 the Lord Himself. Philip of Bethsaida, in 
 the history before us, illustrates the true 
 method ; he had " found Jesus," had re- 
 cognised in Him the Christ ; God's answer 
 to the hunger and thirst of humanity. Such 
 a knowledge evidences its reality by its self- 
 communicativeness ; he rushes to his friend ; 
 without preface, argument, or explanation, 
 he says, " I have found the Christ ; " he is 
 met at once with a chilling retort, which 
 could easily be modernised into the words, 
 "You are the victim of an enthusiasm, you 
 are led astray by emotion ; you have theo- 
 logy, ecclesiasticism, orthodoxy, and pro- 
 phecy against you ; ' Can any good thing 
 come out of Nazareth t ' " Mark the sim- 
 plicity of his reply; he cannot argue the 
 
Infidelity. 25 
 
 question on its merits ; he has not the power 
 afterwards exhibited by Saul of Tarsus, of 
 " proving by the Scriptures that this is the 
 very Christ," but he knows what he has 
 fonndj he can at least invite trial, he is not 
 afraid to subject the blessed truth which was 
 flooding his whole being with its vivid light 
 to the most searching analysis, the closest 
 investigation : " Philip saith unto him. Come 
 and see." Here is the one absolutely irre- 
 fragable Christian evidence : the power of 
 Jesus Christ to satisfy every human instinct, 
 to fill the heart to overflowing, to save to 
 the uttermost, to elevate the affections, to 
 perfect the nature, to ennoble the character 
 of fallen man. This is the witness that w^e, 
 citizens of heaven, ought to be able to give 
 in our own lives. Jesus our Risen Lord 
 says, Ye are My epistles, " Ye shall be wit- 
 
26 The Trinity of Evil 
 
 nesses unto Me." " As my Father sent Me, 
 even so send I you." We ought to be able 
 to say, — 
 
 "Marvel not that Christ in glory 
 All my inmost heart hath won ; 
 Not a star to cheer my darkness, 
 But a light beyond the sun. 
 
 " I have heard the voice of Jesus, 
 Tell me not of aught beside ; 
 I have seen the face of Jesus, 
 All my soul is satisfied." 
 
 Inasmuch as the best sermon is a life, our 
 life should so witness that men would be 
 compelled to acknowledge that "the life 
 we live in the flesh we live by the power 
 of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave 
 • Himself for us." In so far as it is not so, 
 we are responsible for some of the un- 
 belief; and before we blame sceptics let us 
 to our knees in penitence and prayer. But, 
 
Infidelity. 27 
 
 thank God, we can overwhelm an inquirer 
 with examples that come under our know- 
 ledge in evangelistic work. It is simply 
 a phenomenon in the realm of fact that 
 thousands of men and women, sin-stained 
 and polluted, have been radically changsd 
 and are kept from falling by the power of 
 the living Lord Jesus, to whom they have 
 entrusted themselves. We ask the doubter\ 
 to "come and see," to inquire and investi- 
 gate, to put himself in the way of knowing 
 something of the radical conversion of those 
 who have found the Lord Jesus, and inform 
 us if there is any other power or influence 
 known which can take possession of a de- 
 graded human being, a mass of hereditary 
 taints and warps and scars, and quicken, 
 inspire, purify him; eradicating surely, though 
 sometimes slowly, the tendencies of life-long 
 
The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 habits. If there were but one such case 
 known, it would be as worthy, as one has 
 said, " of a place and explanation as any 
 alkali in your crucibles, any birdtrack or 
 ornitholite in the sand," and they are 
 ^occurring every day. That they are not 
 without their effect may be proved by the 
 following extract from one of the secularist 
 newspapers : — 
 
 "The unquestionable power that Christianity 
 possesses, under certain given conditions, of 
 making a worthless life valuable, of reforming 
 a depraved man or woman, forms a most 
 interesting and profitable study. Instances 
 of its ability to do this are to be found on 
 every side of us. Much of its strength lies 
 in the fact that it can justifiably boast of 
 reclamatory achievements that compel the 
 admiration and respect of mankind. It sue- 
 
Infidelity. 29 
 
 ceeds in effecting rescues from evil in cases 
 that other moral agencies would regard as 
 almost hopeless. . . . Speaking only for 
 myself, I confess my ignorance of any method 
 by which Rationalism can successfully com- 
 pete with orthodox Christianity in awakening 
 a dormant conscience or in suddenly re- 
 volutionising the habits of a lifetime." 
 
 In conclusion, if Philip of Bethsaida speaks 
 to the believer, similarly and with like 
 decisiveness does the action of Nathanael 
 speak to those who know not the Lord ; 
 and with such are not the churches as well 
 as the secularist halls filled t Lives there a 
 doubter who is constrained by motives half 
 as strong for rejecting Jesus and disputing 
 His credentials as those which actuated 
 Nathanael at that moment } With him was 
 the earnest conviction of a lifetime of 
 
30 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 thoughtful study, based on the teaching of 
 writings he believed to be verbally inspired, 
 to assure him that Christ would not come 
 from Nazareth but from Bethlehem, not as 
 a persecuted working-man evangelist, but 
 as an emancipating prince. Had he, whilst 
 pretending to seek for truth, looked down 
 with contempt upon the enthusiasm of his 
 friend, his opportunity would have passed. 
 It was not so. He arose, bestirred himself, 
 came — how much of the secret of salvation 
 is wrapped up in that word " come " ! — and 
 Jesus sazv him coming, and quick as He ever 
 is to meet the awaking soul reaching after 
 Him, rewards Nathanael with such a flood of 
 God-given demonstration and conviction that 
 from that moment his heart was filled with 
 the knowledge of the Lord, and he entered 
 into the believer's privilege : '^ Henceforth 
 
Infidelity. 3 1 
 
 thou shalt see the heaven opened, and the 
 angels of God ascending and descending upon 
 the Son of man." 
 
 That word of Royal invitation, "come," 
 still rings through the world. His word 
 remains pledged, " Him that cometh I will in 
 nowise cast out." Mysteries, difficulties, of 
 course there are ; in a revelation coming 
 from God their absence would be a stumbling- 
 block, indeed : but nature is more charged 
 with them even than revelation. " I have 
 dissected many a body, and I never found 
 a soul," argued a sceptical physiologist. " I 
 have dissected many an eye, and I never 
 found sight," replied his believing companion. 
 It is, to say the least of it, no greater mystery 
 that my spirit, trustingly lifted heavenward, 
 shielded to the utmost of my ability from 
 intervening hindrances, should be fed by the 
 
32 The Trinity of Evil 
 
 living Christ : that He should grow up into 
 it, become part of it, until I can say — " I 
 live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; " 
 than that the broad leaf of the garden veget- 
 able lifted sunward should be fed by the 
 sun's rays ; that the sun should so grow up 
 into it and become part of it, that the very 
 sunlight could be chemically extracted from 
 it in the form of carbon, and that it would 
 be hardly unscientific to say "it lives, yet 
 not it, but the sun liveth in it." The truest 
 instincts of man will never be satisfied with 
 anything short of this, though the constant 
 raising of our ideal as we grow up into Him 
 frequently conveys the impression to our 
 minds that we are not progressing. The 
 hollow emptiness of mere negation starves 
 the soul of man. One of the best known 
 writers on political economy on the Continent 
 
Infidelity. 33 
 
 has recently left the ranks of the Free- 
 thinkers : when questioned, he replied, N' avoir 
 rien cest trap peic (to have nothing, it is 
 too little) ; yes, to have nothing, when, in 
 Christ, you might have all things, is too 
 little indeed. It was too little for the six- 
 teen infidel leaders of London, who in the 
 last thirty years have turned to Christ and 
 salvation (see important leaflet, "What be- 
 comes of the Infidel Leaders," by the Rev. 
 C. J. Whitmore, Z%, Caversham Road, N.W.); 
 and though there is not necessarily a clear- 
 ing away of every doubt and difficulty when 
 you come to Jesus, the strain is removed. 
 If you inspect the intricacies of the 
 machinery of one of the great manufacturing 
 firms, you will come to some parts inclosed 
 in a locked box, and will be told that of 
 this tJie Master has the key ; so there are, 
 
 D 
 
34" The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 and ever will be enigmas connected with 
 the wondrous dealings of God with man 
 of which it must be said the Master has the 
 key ; but, when He is Master, He gives 
 the witness of the Spirit to those who trust 
 Him, and in the secret of His presence there 
 is peace : — 
 
 " Ridge of the mountain wave, lower thy crest ; 
 Wail of Euroclydon, be thou at rest ! 
 Sorrow can never be, darkness must fly, 
 Where saith the God of God, Peace, it is I." 
 
IMPURITY. 
 
II. 
 
 IMPURITY. 
 
 " I am full of the fury of the Lord."— JER. vi. ii. 
 
 'npiS well that the heavenly citizen 
 should at times be " full of the fury 
 of the Lord " ; should be on fire with Divine 
 indignation. He wrestles "not against flesh 
 and blood, but against principalities, against 
 powers, against spiritual wickedness in high 
 places," and the sound of his rebuke and 
 warning must ofttimes be in proportion to 
 the intensity of the peril. " Son of man," 
 said the word of the Lord to Ezekiel, "if 
 thou givest him not warning nor speakest 
 to warn the v/icked from his wicked way 
 
3^ The Ti'inity of Evil. 
 
 to save his life, the same wicked man shall 
 die in his iniquity, but his blood will I re- 
 quire at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the 
 wicked, and he turn not from his wicked- 
 ness, he shall die in his iniquity ; but thou 
 hast delivered thy soul." 
 
 It is in this spirit that the heavenly citizen 
 is constrained to deal with that second ma- 
 lignant influence in the trinity of evil, to 
 which allusion was made in the previous 
 paper, namely, the sin of impurity. The 
 storm of indignation which has burst upon 
 the Pall Mall Gazette on account of its 
 recent exposure of flagitious, all-sacrificing 
 lust, has afforded to many minds an addi- 
 tional proof that it is characteristic of an 
 age of peculiar self-indulgence to deprecate 
 plain speaking about plain sins ; to endure 
 unblushingly the visible manifestation of 
 
Impurity. 39 
 
 evil ; and prudishly to hide the head when 
 such evils are denounced from pulpit, press, 
 or platform by their proper names. We 
 must at once acknowledge that there are 
 some godly, Christian people who deprecate 
 the publication of the articles in question ; 
 but the immense majority of the violent 
 abuse which has been showered upon the 
 head of the revealer of the "apocalypse of 
 evil " has come from the frivolous, the 
 worldly, the self-pleasing, who have so ex- 
 hausted their vocabulary in abuse of the 
 Pall Mall Gazette that they appear not to 
 have a curse to spare for the defiiers of the 
 temple of the Holy Ghost, the child tor- 
 turers, the incarnate fiends who have per- 
 petrated the abominations which the Pall 
 Mall Gazette has exposed, or the unnatural, 
 avaricious godlessness of parents who have 
 
40 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 literally fulfilled the prophecy in Joel iii. 3 : 
 " They have sold a girl for wine that they 
 may drink." 
 
 In the midst of notorious vices which are 
 eating like a canker into the heart of modern 
 society ; with not a few of the leaders of 
 so-called high life living openly in adultery ; 
 with some of the main thoroughfares of the 
 Metropolis so blocked by troops of fashion- 
 able prostitutes that a man who desires not 
 to be solicited must walk amidst the cabs 
 and omnibuses in the streets ; we are told 
 that the articles in the Pall Mall are in- 
 decent, and we are treated to the amazing 
 spectacle of a Government prosecution 
 against those who have been endeavouring, 
 though possibly blunderingly and erro- 
 neously, to check the evil, when notorious 
 procuresses and wealthy child seducers, well 
 
Impurity. 
 
 known to the police, are permitted to go on 
 their way unmolested. It is a despicable de- 
 ceit of civilization, it is an insult to right 
 feeling and common sense, it is, moreover, 
 nationally perilous, inasmuch as it courts the 
 explanation that, in the opinion of the au- 
 thorities, the interests of particular trades and 
 the reputations of particular persons are of 
 more importance than national morality in the 
 aggregate and the sufferings of the wronged. 
 It is not reassuring to observe in the leading 
 society newspaper the remark that a "num- 
 ber of gentlemen are trembling and quaking 
 in their shoes lest they should be implicated 
 in the revelations." Such GENTLEMEN must 
 necessarily detest the intrusive forth-teller of 
 those things " done of them in secret," and 
 their undistinguishing fury against the Pall 
 Mall Gazette is accountable when we call 
 
The Triiiity of Evil. 
 
 to mind the scandalous hushing up of the 
 proceedings at Westminster against the 
 wretched procuress, Mary Jeffries, in which 
 men of exalted rank were directly implicated. 
 (For their names see The Sentinel for June, 
 1885, published by Dyer, Paternoster Square.) 
 We feel bound to express the opinion that 
 these revelations, however nauseous, however 
 shocking to the moral sense, must tend in 
 the ultimate issue to moral improvement It 
 is undeniable that they have already accom- 
 plished directly the result of raising the age 
 at which seduction is punishable by law, and 
 have rendered it less easy for the would-be 
 libertine to destroy. By the law of Moses, 
 when leprosy in all its hideous defilement 
 was full out upon the sufferer's body he was 
 no longer ceremonially unclean, partly for the 
 reason that in that stage the disease was less 
 
Impurity. 43 
 
 contagious, partly in that the utter loathsome- 
 ness of the sight would of itself discourage 
 contact. The same principle applies to the 
 scathing exposure of moral leprosy in the ar- 
 ticles in question. There are minds so foul, 
 as all who have had remedial dealings with 
 souls know well, that their prurient appetites 
 will find some food even in the most sacred 
 writings ; but here the physical details are 
 recorded with such sickening minuteness that 
 they can hardly be imagined to do other than 
 revolt even the most licentious, and the entire 
 publication does not contain half the poten- 
 tiality for inspiring prurience that may be 
 found within the pages of many a sensational 
 three-volume novel, the main object of which 
 appears to be to gloss over sin with a veneer 
 of sentiment, and to enlist the sympathy of 
 the reader with, while pretending to con- 
 
44 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 demn, breaches of the seventh commandment. 
 In no one out of the whole catalogue of 
 crimes laid bare by the Pall Mall Gazette 
 does there lie hid so much suggestion of evil, 
 as in the following sentences from the lead- 
 ing society journal, a paper to be found in 
 the house of almost every condemner of the 
 Pall Mall. Commenting upon an accusation 
 recently made against an ex-Cabinet minister, 
 it says, " As a man of fashion (he) ought to 
 be superior to emotional weakness ; from the 
 deals of private conduct, which, as one might 
 imagine, he proposes to himself, effusiveness 
 or gush should be absent ; while the pursuit 
 of pleasure should be tempered by a dis- 
 cretion and astuteness which throw the glam- 
 our of intellectual ingenuity over the gross- 
 ness of vice." What counsel can be imagined 
 more deliberately immoral than this ? Here 
 
Impurity. 45 
 
 is vice varnished over with literary euphem- 
 ism, spread broadcast into the family Hfe of 
 the nation with impunity by the editor of 
 the society journal, whilst the editor of the 
 Pall Mall Gazette, iox exposing and uttering 
 a warning voice against gross breaches of the 
 law, is not only smothered with invective, 
 but has to take his place in the dock as a 
 prisoner. 
 
 Nay, let us rather be thankful that the 
 conspiracy of silence has been broken at last, 
 that the fierce sunlight of exposure is beating 
 in upon the mass of moral rottenness. When 
 the Hon. Grantly Berkeley, looking back in 
 his autobiography upon the events of a long 
 and changeful life, attributes no small share 
 of the vices and follies of earlier years to his 
 never having heard in his life one brave 
 outspoken sermon upon the text, "Thou 
 
46 TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 shalt not commit adultery," we may lay it 
 down as an axiom that when society is 
 ashamed to sin it will be time enough for 
 those whose duty it is to endeavour to stem 
 the torrent of evil in society to be ashamed 
 to speak of sin. In the meantime, we thank 
 God that He hath placed " watchmen upon 
 the wall of Zion who shall never hold their 
 peace day nor night ; " men who, in the spirit 
 of John the Baptist, the royal chaplain who 
 rebuked a king at the cost of his head, will 
 " constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke 
 vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake." 
 As we look back on the history of man- 
 kind, as we note the disastrous power of the 
 lusts of the flesh to distort the strongest 
 characters, to taint the lives of men and 
 women, and to poison the springs of family 
 life, we are compelled to admit that the 
 
Impurity. 47 
 
 sexual impurity of our day is no sudden 
 development, but an inheritance of evil 
 deeply ingrained in human nature. Augus- 
 tine is probably the originator of the theory 
 that some fearful form of this sin necessitated 
 the deluge ; the destruction of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and the extirpation of the Can- 
 aanites, were the direct consequences of 
 sexual vice ; the traditions of heathen my- 
 thology, the still existing frescoes on the 
 walls of Pompeii, and the locked room filled 
 with obscene statuary in the museum at 
 Naples, indicate the extent of the evil 
 amongst the ancient civilizations. The wor- 
 ship of Baal and Ashtaroth, the deification 
 of the male and female principles in nature, 
 patronised by Jezebel, the Zidonian queen, 
 was accompanied with the wildest sensual 
 licence, which Elijah the Tishbite was raised 
 
43 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 up by Jehovah to rebuke ; and it was the 
 same sexual vice, and again in a king's 
 palace, that Elijah's great antitype, John the 
 Baptist, so fearlessly challenged and rebuked. 
 What has been termed the " self-repeating 
 action of humanity " has carried on the in- 
 heritance to our own time, and we find our- 
 selves confronted with a grievous manifes- 
 tation of the old evil. Recent revelations 
 have sufficed to convince many that impurity, 
 not only amongst haunts of squalor, misery, 
 and vice, but in the highest societies also, is 
 assuming the proportions of a pestilence, and 
 threatening the mainsprings of national life. 
 Statistics are obtainable in ghastly array, 
 proving beyond question that many of the 
 general conditions of society prevailing in 
 Imperial Rome, in the early days of Chris- 
 tianity, are being reproduced in Christian 
 
Impurity. 49 
 
 England at the present time. This being so 
 it is in the h'ght of patriotism that it behoves 
 us first to touch this cancer of modern life, 
 for the truth is unalterable that '* righteous- 
 ness exalteth a nation," and that national 
 demoralisation is followed by decrepitude 
 and decay. All vain-glorious boasting about 
 prestige abroad, and spirited foreign policies 
 is but sounding brass when the life-blood 
 of a nation is being sapped by voluptuous 
 corruption. "Thou canst not stand before 
 thine enemies until ye put away the accursed 
 thing from amongst you" (Josh. vii. 13). 
 What blindness, then, can be imagined more 
 suicidal than the conspiracy of silence which 
 would cast a veil over evil influences de- 
 structive to the welfare of a people If it be 
 true that there are eighty thousand fallen 
 women plying their terrible trade in London 
 
 E 
 
so The Tri7iity of Evil. 
 
 alone, and that in other centres of population 
 the proportion is maintained ; if it be true 
 that nameless vices and hideous forms of 
 sin (Rom. i. 26, 27) are increasing amongst 
 us ; if it be true that had the Jeffries case 
 not been hushed up, the revelation of the 
 names of those implicated would have shaken 
 society to its foundation ; inasmuch as the 
 purity of a nation in the aggregate will 
 never rise higher than the purity of its 
 women, it is the bounden duty of every 
 patriot and philanthropist to direct his at- 
 tention to, and deal courageously with, this 
 hindrance to national well-being. Mirabeau, 
 when asked at what age he would commence 
 the education of a boy, is reported to have 
 replied, "I would begin twenty years before 
 he is born, by educating his mother." The 
 inexorable law of heredity convinces us of 
 
Impurity. 5 ^ 
 
 the disastrous effect upon national life of 
 the converse of this benevolent proposition ; 
 twenty years before they are born are we 
 demoralising the coming generation by suf- 
 fering the contagion of degrading vice to 
 infect their potential mothers. It is time 
 then that these questions lying at the root 
 of national well-being should be pressed 
 upon the attention of our would-be legis- 
 lators. We are hearing enough, perhaps 
 more than enough, of the various items of 
 the programmes of the contending political 
 aspirants for power, while a condition of 
 shameless vice which lowers the whole moral 
 tone of the nation by enslaving the will 
 to the appetite, demoralising youth and 
 degrading womanhood, is, presumably be- 
 cause it does not supply material for party 
 warfare, passed over in silence. 
 
52 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 Speaking from the lowest platform first, 
 it is, I am convinced, from an elevated tone 
 of public feeling alone that improvement 
 may be anticipated. It behoves society, in 
 mere self-defence, if from no higher motive, 
 to bestir itself and extrude from the domestic 
 circle polluting influences. Surely there are, 
 amidst the highborn and the influential, a 
 goodly number " who have not bowed the 
 knee to Baal, and who have not kissed him " 
 The peril of the times calls for heroic 
 efforts. Let them combine to raise the whole 
 standard of social ethics, in conversation, in 
 qualification for friendship, in occupation, in 
 recreation. Let them by mutual agreement 
 endeavour to abolish the vile social code 
 whereby one standard of morals is required 
 of a woman and another of a man. Let 
 them resolutely exclude from their houses 
 
Impurity. 5 3 
 
 men, whatever be their credentials of birth 
 or wealth, who are known to be living in 
 open sin. Let them shake themselves free 
 from "the devil's cobwebs of guilty custom 
 and guilty acquiescence," and believe that 
 the purity and happiness of their daughters 
 are of more value than coronets or fortunes. 
 They will have difficulties to contend with, 
 doubtless, but inasmuch as their influence 
 will spread downwards and leaven the masses 
 beneath them, they will justify the existence 
 of a ruling class and earn the gratitude of 
 thousands. They are, perhaps, hardly aware 
 of the extent to which the vices of the poorer 
 classes are an echo of the manner of life of 
 those above them in the social scale. Selfish 
 luxury, ostentation, fortune and title-hunt- 
 ing, stripped of the veneer of social refine- 
 ment, are apt to reappear in the hideous 
 
54 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 forms of vice common amongst those who 
 compose the dangerous and criminal classes. 
 If it may be said with truth of some of 
 the marriages in high life, too frequently 
 concluded by the Divorce Court, that " they 
 have sold a girl for a fortune or a coronet," 
 we have no right to be surprised if the 
 contagion spreads downwards from Belgravia 
 to Whitechapel ; and if the refined and legal- 
 ised form of prostitution which legitimatises 
 the aristocratic bargain by the ceremony of 
 marriage, repeats itself in the brutal insens- 
 ibility to parental duty revealed by the Pall 
 Mall Gazette, and foretold by the prophet 
 Joel in the words already quoted, "They have 
 sold a girl for wine, that they may drink." 
 
 It would, moreover, greatly tend to miti- 
 gate the existing condition of things if there 
 were associations of men in connection with 
 
Impurity. 5 5 
 
 the White Cross Army or some other branch 
 of the Purity Crusade, chivalrously pledged, 
 even if from motives of compassion and 
 patriotism alone, to protect the honour and 
 further the interests of women and girls. 
 If men of culture and standing in society 
 would combine to mete out the same penalty 
 to one who deliberately robs a woman of 
 her purity that they would inflict upon one 
 who cheats at cards or fails to settle his 
 racing debts, the effect would be immediate 
 and salutary. Lives there a criminal on 
 this earth more despicable, more worthy of 
 the punishment of social ostracism, than the 
 man who, by false pretences, by flattery, 
 by stimulating the impulses of curiosity or 
 afl"ection deliberately robs a girl of her virtue .^ 
 In all the bitter meaning of the term he has 
 been the ruin of her ; he has destroyed her 
 
56 The Trinity of Evil, 
 
 as effectually and as irrevocably as one who 
 for a caprice might burn a priceless diamond 
 into a chip of carbon, from which condition 
 all the chemists in the world can never 
 recover it. Himself escaping without loss 
 or damage, he has condemned her to a life 
 of shame and degradation, to a condition of 
 bondage more bitter than negro slavery, to 
 a hopeless life naturally terminating in a 
 despairing death, embittered by loathsome 
 disease ; unless, indeed, the blistering 
 anguish of an unsleeping conscience, ever 
 reminding her of happier years, drives his 
 victim into a suicide's grave, and a plunge 
 into the dark waters tells of one more — 
 
 " Mad from life's history, 
 Glad to death's mystery 
 Swift to be hurled, 
 Anywhere, anywhere, 
 Out of the world." 
 
Impurity. 57 
 
 That the deliberate author of a ruin such 
 as this, — and there are hundreds who boast 
 of the number of the ruins they have accom- 
 plished, — should be received into the society 
 of the just, the upright, and the pure, should 
 merit the confidence of his fellow-men, and 
 be entrusted with the responsibility of a 
 legislator, either hereditary or elected ; 
 should mingle freely with the wives and 
 daughters of others, is a paradox, an 
 absurdity, and a crime. 
 
 Again, it is to such associations of refor- 
 mers of society that we must look for the 
 formation of vigorous vigilance committees 
 to watch the general treatment of women ; 
 to interest themselves in removing the 
 disabilities of women ; to protest against, 
 and, where possible, remove that terrible 
 incentive to vice, the utterly inadequate 
 
58 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 remuneration for women's labour ; to watch 
 narrowly the public-houses and gin-palaces 
 of the Metropolis and other large towns, 
 vast numbers of which are dens of infamy 
 and brothels in disguise. It will be their 
 duty also to leaven public opinion and diffuse 
 information — statistical, medical, and legal. 
 By the means of frequent lectures, such as 
 Mr. Henry Varley's grand *' Sermon to Men," 
 the masses should be assured that this form 
 of vice is as much a sin against human order 
 as against Divine law, and that the natural 
 penalties attaching to it are peculiar, fright- 
 ful, and hereditary. The wretched sophistry 
 of the argument, not unfrequently urged by 
 young men, that health cannot be main- 
 tained without sexual sin, must be exposed 
 and refuted, and any boasted medical 
 authority met by the public statement of 
 
Lnpurity. 59 
 
 Sir James Paget, that the continent man is 
 in every case the strong man, and that he 
 would as readily recommend a patient to 
 steal as to commit the sin of fornication. 
 The detestable philosophy of selfishness 
 which underlies the invariable excuse that 
 the committal of this sin does not involve 
 wronging the woman if only she be already 
 fallen, must be constantly combated. As 
 well might it be urged that no blame would 
 attach to one who, seeing a woman sinking 
 in the mud of a tidal river, thrust her, for his 
 own gratification, one foot deeper down into 
 the slough, and exculpated himself upon the 
 plea that he was not the first to cast her in. 
 Nay, though the necessary retribution may 
 not be so terrible as that which awaits her 
 first seducer, every separate sharer in her 
 gradually increasing degradation is her 
 
6o The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 moral murderer, and guilty before his God. 
 Further, when once the amount of impurity 
 that shelters itself under the trashy inflam- 
 matory fiction that pours from the modern 
 printing press has been recognised, it is 
 obvious that any attempt on the part of 
 society for self-purification will include a 
 searching censorship over books. If you 
 would shrink from subjecting your daughter 
 to the companionship of a man of coarse 
 mind, wisdom would suggest the same com- 
 punction at subjecting her mind to the foul 
 saturation of some of the popular novels of 
 the day, and you will choose her books with 
 as much discrimination as you would choose 
 her friends. We are not prepared to say 
 that all forms of literary fiction are neces- 
 sarily demoralising. The method called 
 fiction is not unknown to the Bible, as may 
 
Iinptirity. 6 1 
 
 be seen in Jotham's parable of the trees 
 (Judg. ix.), and from the allegories of the 
 New Testament. The harmless fairy-tales 
 of childhood have sometimes started into 
 activity the wondering faculty which, stimu- 
 lating the instinct for reaching into the 
 unknown, have led at last into the awakened 
 " faith faculty," whose sole satisfier is God. 
 Works like the novels of Miss Yonge, and 
 authors of a similar stamp, have exercised 
 a defining influence upon many minds, and, 
 without doubt, social wrongs and class 
 injustices, and even national sins, have at 
 times been more successfully attacked under 
 the guise of clever fiction than by direct 
 assault. Charles Reade's " Never too Late 
 to Mend," brought about a distinct mitiga- 
 tion of prison discipline ; his " Hard Cash " 
 focussed the attention of thoughtful men 
 
62 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 upon the then existing iniquities of private 
 lunatic asylums, and brought indirectly relief 
 to hundreds ; whilst other writings of his 
 have caused many to consider seriously 
 whether the relations between employer and 
 employed were righteously adjusted, and 
 prepared the minds of men for salutary 
 changes which have since been effected. 
 But it is impossible to speak too emphati- 
 cally of the terrible danger to intellect, heart, 
 and spirit of the bad book. Of such an one 
 did an eminent Christian man speak but 
 recently when he declared that for a quarter 
 of an hour, when he was a boy, a book was 
 placed in his hand, the evil impression of 
 which had never left him, though his hair 
 was grey in the service of Christ. In such 
 books there are serpent's fangs. We read of 
 one who in India took down from his shelf 
 
Impurity. 63 
 
 a book, feeling at the same moment a slight 
 prick in his finger which he attributed to 
 a pin ; symptoms of poisoning rapidly 
 appeared, and he was shortly a corpse. A 
 deadly serpent had been concealed amongst 
 the books, and had struck its fangs into his 
 finger. There are books that sting to the 
 death. Many a ruined life and broken heart 
 has owed its destruction to literary poison. 
 Courvoisier attributed his assassination of 
 Lord William Russell to a state of morbid 
 sympathy with crime induced by reading the 
 popular romance " Jack Sheppard." And 
 many a girl has fallen an easy prey to the 
 seducer from inflated notions, sentimental 
 ideas, and poisonous thoughts, instilled into 
 her mind through novels, feuilletons, and 
 suggestive poetry. Thus far, at least, may 
 we fairly look to the instinct of self-protec- 
 
64 The Tj^inity of Evil. 
 
 tion in society to check corruption, resist 
 injustice, spread information, and generally 
 to elevate the moral standard. 
 
 It is now meet that we should consider, 
 in conclusion, the characteristic duty of the 
 Christian as such, the citizen of heaven, 
 towards the prevailing impurity. Impurity 
 is a heart-sin, of which misery and cor- 
 ruption are the fruits. " Out of the heart," 
 proclaimed He who knew what was in 
 man, " proceed adulteries." This being so, 
 the labours of philanthropists and reformers 
 of society, the diffusion of knowledge, the 
 censorship of literature, and removal of the 
 disabilities of women, though they will pre- 
 vail to ameliorate the suffering fever of the 
 symptoms, must be powerless to touch the 
 root of the disease. It can only be cured 
 by One who has the will and the power 
 
Impurity. 65 
 
 to put a new heart into man. There is a 
 remedy, perfect and unfailing, for the here- 
 ditary and acquired poison of sin-stained 
 human nature, and this remedy is the 
 cleansing, healing, keeping power of the 
 Risen, ever-present, Christ, who has pledged 
 His word, and heaven and earth shall 
 sooner pass away than that word be 
 broken — " Him that cometh unto Me I will 
 in no wise cast out." The great dramatic 
 incident of the contest between Elijah and 
 the prophets of Baal is the prophecy and 
 the prototype of the power of the Spirit of 
 Jesus to conquer in man the lust of the 
 flesh. Baal, the lust god, the deified male 
 principle in nature, is conquered by the fire 
 from heaven, and the shattered altar of 
 Jehovah rebuilt (i Kings xviii.). Thus have, 
 again and again, the whole licentious crew 
 
 F 
 
66 The TiHnity of Evil. 
 
 of passions that have ministered to the 
 Baal within been put to death, and the 
 shattered bodily temple been cleansed and 
 rebuilt by the Jehovah-Jesus, when the link 
 of faith and trust has been forged between 
 His power and a sinner's weakness. The 
 Gospel accepted ; the good news, that God 
 was in Christ " reconciling the world to 
 Himself, not imputing their trespasses," be- 
 lieved ; the marvellous truth, that not only 
 has the Father forgiven our sins, but, in 
 order that He might win our love, robed 
 Himself in a human soul and body, and 
 now calls us to a close personal union with 
 Himself, an interpenetration of life, appre- 
 hended : this knowledge is so soul-filling 
 that it quickens, inspires, purifies, and saves. 
 This Gospel the Christian must first live 
 and then proclaim. Before he can effectively 
 
Impurity. 6j 
 
 go forth and wield the ministry of recon- 
 ciliation entrusted to him and say, "We 
 beseech you in Christ's stead ye be recon- 
 ciled to God," he must shine. The glorious 
 ideal form which from Bethlehem to Calvary 
 manifested God on earth, as it was borne 
 back into the spirit world, spoke the com- 
 mand, " Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." 
 The question is, are we believers thus 
 shiiiincr as lisrhts in the world .'' If not, 
 whatever our words, we are hindering the 
 Gospel we profess to proclaim. " Your 
 words terrify me," said a courtier of France 
 to Massillon, " but your life reassures me." 
 Let us see to it that the inconsistency of 
 our life reassures no half-terrified libertine. 
 St. Paul witnessed to the necessity for 
 watchfulness on the part of the child of 
 God when he exhorted his young Bishop 
 
i^ 
 
 68 The Trinity of Evil 
 
 Timothy in the words '' keep THYSELF pure." 
 Yes, the heavenly citizen, in an atmosphere 
 stifled with corruption, must keep himself 
 pure ; he cannot stand before the enemies 
 of Christ and humanity if the " accursed 
 thing " is in his own heart ; he must reso- 
 lutely and persistently search for any trace 
 of unmortified evil tendency, any unslain 
 prophet of Baal, and crucify it. When the 
 old line-of-battle ship Doiigal, lying on Ports- 
 mouth mud, was overhauled after being 
 fifteen years out of commission, they found 
 in her a live shell with fuse attached, 
 which, under the pressure of a child's foot 
 or the gnawing of a rat's tooth, might at 
 any moment during those fifteen years have 
 blown her to atoms. A citizen of heaven 
 cannot afford thus to have live shells within ; 
 his safety is in abiding constantly and 
 
Impurity. 69 
 
 consciously in Christ. " I am the Lord's " 
 (Isa. xHv. 5) will be his perpetual pro- 
 tection ; to Satan he will say, " Touch not 
 the Lord's anointed " ; to human tempters 
 he will say, "I am not my own, how can 
 I do this great sin against my God ? " To 
 his Heavenly Father he will say, "I am 
 Thine, save me " (Ps. cxix.). There is a 
 tiny aquatic insect that possesses the ca- -j 
 pacity for gathering round itself a bubble of 
 atmospheric air, encased in which, as in a 
 crystal vesture, it can plunge into the foulest 
 water and traverse the muddiest bottom 
 unsoiled : it is a parable of the believer 
 abiding in Jesus. Hidden in Him, with 
 every thought brought into captivity to 
 Him, living in His presence, the Christian 
 is safe, and he can walk unharmed through 
 the world's wickedness. Moreover, thus 
 
JO The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 abiding, living in touch with the Lord, 
 his words of warning will have power. If 
 his is a pulpit ministry, he will fearlessly 
 denounce sins of the flesh, leaving conse- 
 quences to God. The fact that society 
 tolerates and condones what it would not 
 have tolerated in the days when the consort 
 of our Queen was living, is partly to be 
 accounted for by the silence of the pulpit ; 
 the servant of the Lord must seek for the 
 Elijah spirit, which can calmly confront an 
 Ahab with " I have not troubled Israel, but 
 thou and thy father's house " ; the John 
 Baptist spirit with its Nazarite separateness 
 and daring truthfulness, which can withstand 
 a Herod with the verdict, " It is not lawful 
 for thee to have her." Again, though for 
 this he will find it expedient to address the 
 two sexes separately, he will speak with 
 
Impurity. 7 1 
 
 outspoken lucidity to young men with re- 
 gard to secret sin. There are sins, secret 
 as the grave, which crush, blight, ruin the 
 Divine image in man, and tens of thousands 
 never hear a warning word against them. 
 There stood one, on the southern peak of 
 the Isle of Skye, and watched the eagles as 
 they soared in the deep blue far above 
 his head. Suddenly he saw one hesitate, 
 tremble, begin to descend, close its wings 
 and fall, dead, a mere mass of feathers to 
 the ground. Out from beneath its body 
 crept a tiny weasel which it had captured 
 as its prey, and holding which in its talons 
 it had soared aloft. True to its nature, the 
 weasel had writhed from the eagle's talons, 
 and fixing its teeth into his life's blood, had 
 brought him to the ground. Thus has many 
 a noble young life full of promise been 
 
7- The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 crushed and ruined by a secret sin ; lightly 
 treated, little feared, it has sucked the life- 
 blood of the soul. 
 
 Lastly, the heavenly citizen will ever have 
 the " mind of Christ " towards the fallen ; 
 filled with the yearning compassion of his 
 Master, who never shrank from leper's touch 
 or harlot's tear, he will look upon none as 
 fallen too far for the glorious remedy to 
 reach. The Spirit of God never ceases to 
 strive even with the most polluted and sin- 
 stained, and the Lord has never ceased to 
 love His sheep that have wandered from 
 Him. Not otherwise was it with one poor 
 outcast who was found dead in a wretched 
 garret, friendless and starved — 
 
 ■ Oh, it was pitiful. 
 Near a whole city full, — 
 Friend she had none ; " 
 
Impurity. 73 
 
 but in her own handwriting, blotted with 
 her tears, was found that pathetic wail, since 
 reprinted by the thousand, of which these 
 stanzas are a part : — 
 
 " Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell, 
 Fell like the snowflakes from heaven to hell ; 
 Fell to be trampled as filth on the street, 
 Fell to be scofifed, to be spit on and beat — 
 Pleading — cursing — dreading to die, 
 
 " Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; 
 Deahng in shame for a morsel of bread, 
 Hating the living and fearing the dead. 
 Merciful God, have I fallen so low? 
 And yet I was once like the beautiful snow." 
 
 Would not He whose name is Love " put 
 these tears into His bottle," and " note these 
 things in His book " ? Would He not read 
 into these words the prayer, "Wash me, and 
 I shall be whiter than snow" ? It will be the 
 duty of the heavenly citizen to find this 
 chord in the sad hearts, set it vibrating 
 
74 ^-The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 once more, and satisfy it with the glorious 
 message of the Gospel : '* The Lord hath 
 laid on Him the iniquity of us all." " Come 
 unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 75 
 
I 
 
 III. 
 
 INTEMPERANCE, 
 
 ''The twelfth an amethyst."— Rev. xxi. 20. "^ 
 T is an old story, but it is not more old 
 
 than true, that a vast proportion of the 
 disgraceful libertinism referred to in the last 
 paper, is directly propagated and mainly 
 supported by the third destructive influence 
 in the trinity of evil of which we would speak 
 to-day, namely, Intemperance. It is not too 
 much to say that without the treacherous, 
 stimulating, all-destroying power of strong 
 drink, one-half of the horrors depicted in the 
 Pall Mall revelations would be impossible. 
 77 
 
The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 To peruse that shockinj^^ catalogue of vice, 
 and mark each occurrence of an allusion to 
 strong drink, is a painful but suggestive 
 study ; again and again do you come upon 
 some such saying as " if possible the girl 
 is made drunk." 
 - A leading judge of the Divorce Court 
 
 j — that standing witness of the inability 
 of birth, education, and refinement to 
 
 \ remedy the evils of the human heart — has 
 declared that nine out of ten of the cases 
 upon which he has to adjudicate owe 
 their origin to strong drink. The police, 
 whose activity in the detection of crime is 
 ever in exact proportion to the urgency of 
 their orders from head-quarters, could tell 
 you, if they chose, of accursed dens of in- 
 famy, where tender boys and girls are initi- 
 ated into the veritable mysteries of Satan ; 
 
Intemperance. 79 
 
 where, primed with ardent spirits, their 
 young hearts are seared as with a hot 
 iron, and they are drawn irresistibly into 
 the vortex of debasement and ruin, to swell 
 the dangerous classes of the community. 
 The columns of the daily papers, the con- 
 stant utterances of judges, magistrates, coro- 
 ners, and superintendents of lunatic asylums, 
 accumulate evidence that the most direct 
 stimulus to crime, lunacy, and pauperism 
 is strong drink. Drinking, says the Times 
 (April, 1 881), baffles us, confounds us, 
 shames us, and mocks us at every point. 
 It outwits alike the teacher, the man of 
 business, the patriot, and the legislator. 
 Every other institution flounders in hope- 
 less difficulties, the public-house holds its 
 triumphant course. The administrators of 
 public and private charity are told that 
 
8o The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 alms and oblations go with rates, doles, and 
 pensions to the all-absorbing bar of the 
 public-house, but the zvorst remains. Not 
 a year passes in either town or village with- 
 out some unexpected and hideous scandal, 
 the outcome of habitual indulgence, often 
 small and innocent in its origin. Some poor 
 creature, long and deservedly high in the 
 respect, perhaps reverence, of the neighbour- 
 hood, makes a sudden shipwreck of charac- 
 ter. Under the accumulating influence of 
 alcohol, aggravated, perhaps, by other still 
 more powerful, still more treacherous agen- 
 cies, the honest man turns knave, the respect- 
 able man suddenly loses principle and 
 self-respect, the wise man is utterly foolish, 
 the rigidly moral man forgets his mask and 
 his code, and takes a plunge into libertin- 
 ism. It then turns out — what possibly some 
 
Intemperance. 8 1 
 
 liave suspected — that drink is at the bottom 
 of it. Yes, drink is at the bottom of it. 
 The fiendish epidemic, prolific of suffering-, 
 suicide, murder, which is mocking every 
 effort of every philanthropist for the well- 
 being of the people, is at the bottom of 
 it. Utterly saddening and disgusting- are 
 the statistics of our national shame, which 
 have been recapitulated a thousand times. 
 Equally harassing are the details of deso- 
 late homes and broken hearts which come 
 under the individual notice of those minis- 
 terially engaged in the work of seeking 
 and saving the wandering. The land is 
 groaning under a heavy burden. Some idea 
 of the pecuniary tax may be gained from 
 the fact that the whole rental of the houses 
 and of the land in this country, added to 
 the amount spent in household coal, hardly 
 
 G 
 
82 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 reaches the total spent annually in intoxi- 
 cating drinks. 
 
 The extent to which intemperance is 
 pauperising the working classes may be 
 imagined from the example of a ship-build- 
 ing town in the north of England, where 
 i^ 1 2,000 was paid weekly in wages, ;^4,ooo 
 of which found its way at once into the 
 various drink-shops.* In Ireland the sum 
 annually spent in drink exceeds by two 
 millions and a quarter the whole rental of 
 the island. And that the producing power 
 of the nation is materially diminished by 
 our drinking habits has been painfully ad- 
 
 * The accuracy of these statistics, origuially ap- 
 pearing in the Pall Mall Gazette, was questioned in 
 Parliament, and the sum mentioned stated to be exag- 
 gerated, but the questioner was compelled to admit 
 that a large proportion of the weekly ^12,000 was 
 spent in drink 
 
Intemperance, 83 
 
 vertised by the English consuls of the 
 United States, who, in a report forwarded 
 to their own Government, have remarked 
 that by reason of drunkenness on Saturday 
 and Monday, the productive power of Eng- 
 land has diminished by one-sixth in com- 
 parison with other countries. (See " Science 
 Temperance Text-Book," by Dr. F. R. Lees, 
 337, Strand. Perhaps the most exhaustive 
 compendium of Temperance information 
 ever published.) But this is not all. If 
 pauperism be a symptom of national decrepi- 
 tude, — and the author of the " Early Days 
 of Christianity" declare? that every age in 
 its decline has exhibited the spectacle of 
 selfish luxury side by side with abject 
 poverty, — it behoves our national reformers 
 to contemplate the following facts. We 
 have in England a vast hereditary pauper 
 
84 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 class which costs the State ten mihioiis 
 annually, and it is estimated that some ten 
 millions more are annually expended in 
 private charity, added to which the crime 
 which springs mainly from that class in- 
 volves an expenditure of another five mil- 
 lions, a sum equal in the aggregate to more 
 than the interest of the National Debt, or 
 about the cost of the army and navy. But, 
 as has been shown by Dr. Baron ('' Le 
 Pauperisme : ses Causes, ses Remedes ") of 
 all the causes of pauperism the most po- 
 tent — more potent probably than all other 
 causes put together — is drink, as well in 
 France as elsewhere. In Geneva, it has been 
 distinctly proved that of one hundred cases 
 of family destitution reheved by the local 
 bureau de bienfaisance^ eighty are traceable to 
 the drunkenness of the father. In France 
 
Intemperance. 
 
 there is one cabaret for every twenty-nine 
 electors, equal to one for every 105 inhabit- 
 ants. Judged by this test, the most drunken 
 departments are the Nord, where there is 
 a cabaret for every eleven electors, and the 
 Pas-de- Calais, where there is one for every 
 fourteen. In La Charente, Le Gers, and Le 
 Vaucluse, the proportion varies from one in 
 fifty to one in sixty-nine. In the regions 
 where cabarets most abound, pauperism is 
 most rife. In the north relief is granted by 
 the bureaux de bienfaisance to one inhabitant 
 in twelve ; in the south-west to one in forty- 
 seven. Comparing the facilities for drinking 
 with the facilities for thrift, we find that while 
 in the Republic at large there is one public- 
 house for 105 people, there is one savings 
 bank for every 28,500, and one benefit society 
 for every 5,400. M. C. Play, the author of 
 
S6 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 " Les Ouvriers des Deux Mondes/' estimates 
 the average expenditure in drink and gam- 
 bling (mostly in drink) of a superior French 
 workman at £2^ sterling a year. The same 
 causes that make for pauperism make also 
 for crime. In the north, there is one crimi- 
 nal {condanine) to 269 inhabitants ; in the 
 south-west, one to 626. Moreover, drink 
 as it were burns the candle at both ends ; 
 an encouragement to expense, it is almost 
 fatal to thrift. In France, as in our own 
 country, it has been noted that when the 
 drink bill reaches its highest point under 
 the influence of prosperity in trade and 
 higher wages, extravagance of all kinds in- 
 creases, and the savings of the people are 
 diminished. For this reason, and for some 
 others which he mentions, Dr. Baron alto- 
 gether disbelieves the hypothesis of want 
 
Intemperance. '^J 
 
 being a cause of drunkenness ; and contends 
 that indigence, criminality, and improvidence 
 are in direct proportion to the nnmber of 
 public-houses. Yet this is the only point 
 on which he does not seem to have the 
 courage of his opinion. He proposes no 
 repressive or regulative laws as touching 
 public-houses, but hopes much from the 
 spread of education and the growth of bet- 
 ter ideas. But, as the example of Switzer- 
 land abundantly proves, popular education, 
 unless accompanied by some material check 
 on facilities for drinking, is not by itself suf- 
 cient to keep a people sober. The Swiss 
 have long been both one of the freest and 
 one of the best instructed of nations ; never- 
 theless the Federal Council have just been 
 constrained to devise an elaborate scheme 
 for making head against drunkenness, by 
 
88 The Trinity of EviL 
 
 reducinfj the number of drink-shops. (See 
 Spectator, ]w\y, '^'^'^^) 
 
 We read of a scheme for draining the 
 Zuyder Zee, whereby fifty million hectares 
 of land, equal to three whole provinces, 
 AVOLild be gained. Truly if some European 
 scheme could be devised for drainingf the 
 Zuyder Zee of Drink, the increase in the 
 happiness, morality, and commercial pros- 
 perity of the nations would be immeasur- 
 able. 
 
 When a case has been as thoroughly 
 proved before every tribunal as the im- 
 peachment against intemperance ; when the 
 Times declares that '' there is not a vice, 
 or a disease, or a disorder, or a calamity 
 of any kind that has not its frequent rise 
 in the public-house ; it degrades, ruins, and 
 trutalises a large fraction of the British 
 
Intemperance. 89 
 
 people ; " when it is manifest that drunk- 
 enness deteriorates the race, binds the will, 
 clouds the intellect, enslaves humanity ; we 
 turn naturally to the Government of the 
 country, imagining that policy and necessity 
 would induce those in authority to take 
 immediate steps to alleviate the prevailing 
 distress. But we turn in vain. A con- 
 templation of proceedings in Parliament 
 from 1880, when Sir Wilfrid Lawson passed 
 for the first time his Local Option resolu- 
 tion, to 1884, constrains us to inquire what 
 there is about the atmosphere of the House 
 of Commons that appears to paralyse con- 
 science, disorganise moral instincts, and 
 blunt the faculties whereby men discern 
 between right and wrong. We are told in 
 trumpet tones that drunkenness produces 
 the " combined evils of war, pestilence, 
 
90 TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 and famine ; " that the main object of the 
 conscientious legislator should be to '' make 
 it easy for people to do right and difficult 
 for them to do wrong." And behold, when 
 the utterers of these magnificent truisms 
 have been enthusiastically placed in power, 
 partly upon the reputation of such enlight- 
 ened sentiments, we have to witness in four 
 years twenty-six Bills, aimed at intemperance, 
 by obstruction, indifference, or "talking out," 
 permitted to fail. It is true that we have 
 to be thankful for some very partial 
 measures of Sunday Closing, and that last 
 year one small suggestion became law, 
 which will not be without its good effect ; 
 and for that we are indebted to the House 
 of Lords, namely, the Bill for preventing 
 the payment of wages in public -houses. 
 But the action of the Government of the 
 
Intemperance. 9 1 
 
 country during the last four years with 
 regard to Temperance reform, has kindled 
 in the hearts of thousands of Temperance 
 voters a sense of wrong too deeply seated 
 to be easily removed by fresh promises. 
 It is true, we ought to have known better 
 than to lean too hard upon a broken reed 
 for legislative morality in England is a 
 puzzle and a paradox. The English have 
 apparently a national obliquity of vision 
 as to the moral proportions of things ; we 
 imprison, for example, with unflinching 
 severity, an apprentice who, under the 
 pressure of sudden tem^ptation, appropriates 
 the contents of his master's cash- box ; 
 while without a qualm we starve the dis- 
 trict of Malwa, in India, by growing 300,000 
 acres of land with opium instead of corn, 
 and for the sake of a few millions sterlincr 
 
The Trinity of EvU. 
 
 to the revenue, curse and destroy the 
 Chinese by importing amongst them, 
 against their will, 80,000 chests of poison 
 annually. Again, in the chaste dignity of 
 our Pharisaism, we institute a virulent 
 Government prosecution against those who 
 hive been exposing amongst us some of 
 the greatest abominations of modern times, 
 while the " Minotaurs," the brothel -keepers, 
 the destroyers of children, though known 
 to the police, are unmolested. Our national 
 niodesty, moreover, requires that the costume 
 of our ballet dancers shall be regulated by 
 all the wisdom of the Lord Chamberlain's 
 office, while Regent Street is permitted to 
 be disgraced nightly by an exhibition of 
 shameless public profligacy that would not 
 be tolerated for a single day in any other 
 capital in Europe. This gnat-straining and 
 
In te in per a nee. 9 3 
 
 camel-swallowing, which is characteristic of 
 our nationality, become positively grotesque 
 when on Sunday morning, as the clock 
 strikes eleven, you see the policeman order- 
 ing off the harmless shoeblack, the working 
 man's valet ; and this gnat being strained 
 out, for the rest of the day he is enabled 
 to swallow con]fortably the vast mass of 
 Sunday trading and labour in gin -palaces, 
 railways, omnibuses, tramcars, West End 
 clubs, and tobacconists' shops. We confess, 
 again, to a positive shock to the moral 
 sense when we read in our daily paper of 
 lads fined before the magistrate for playing 
 some game of chance in the street, and 
 upon turning over our newspaper we see 
 glowing accounts of the gambling transac- 
 tions of the aristocracy in a well known 
 West End racing club, and the betting 
 
94 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 upon the next horse-race chronicled in the 
 same type as the last news from Bulgaria, 
 or the meeting of a Cabinet Council. It 
 is not, therefore, a matter for surprise that 
 this national camel-swallowing and gnat- 
 straining has been a prominent feature in 
 the rise, production, and application of the 
 4/0 Acts upon the statute-book professing 
 to regulate the curse of England, its great 
 licensed liquor-traffic. But there is a hope 
 from the very intensity of the evil. The 
 disasters arising from drink are upon a 
 scale so vast that it will not be possible 
 to see 
 
 " Truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on 
 the throne." 
 
 The hope of the future, speaking from the 
 national, the patriotic standpoint, is in the 
 working men of England, into whose hands 
 
Intemperance. 95 
 
 every day the future destinies of this coun- 
 try are being more and more placed. When 
 once they have clearly perceived that a 
 sober working class could in five years 
 carry every measure of reform they desire ; 
 when once their eyes are open to the fact 
 that the Immense public -house system of 
 the country, the deriving of vast sums for 
 the revenue from the bitter suffering and 
 grinding pauperism of the people, is a 
 terrible offence against their class, the 
 present elaborate system of society-petted 
 and Government-sanctioned, temptation is 
 doomed. In spite of the three hundred 
 millions invested in England's curse, in 
 spite of the revenue derived, In spite of 
 its roots deep down In the national life ; 
 when once the working classes are face to 
 face with their enemy ; when, looking at 
 
g6 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 the accumulated evils pressing upon them, 
 pointing to the shivering, beaten children, 
 sworn at, driven on the streets, familiarised 
 with obscenity and blasphemy from their 
 infancy, they turn upon the liquor- traffic 
 and say, " This is your work," it is doomed ; 
 for 
 
 " There is a wound, a grievous wound, that rankles 
 
 in the heart 
 Of those, who, from their homes and all, by tyrant 
 
 hands must part ; 
 It never heals, but rankles on, like wind, now calm, 
 
 then storm. 
 Till, gath'ring strength, tornado-like, it bursts — 
 
 then comes Reform ! " 
 
 Let those in whose votes lies the potentiality 
 of every measure of reform once be made 
 to realize the truth that by the " tyrant 
 hands " of strong drink alone 600,000 
 families in the United Kingdom never know 
 
Intemperajice. 97 
 
 the meaning of that one word of sweetest 
 cadence, Home, and the tornado that will 
 burst upon the great state-supported system 
 of temptation will assuredly reform it off 
 the face of the land. 
 
 In the meantime, without "Local Option "/\ 
 the people are voiceless, and until some 
 sweeping measure of reform is wrung from a 
 reluctant Government by irresistible pressure, 
 the main stress will continue to be laid upon 
 private unselfish philanthropic reform in the 
 direction of moral suasion, counter attractions 
 to the public-house, the formation of public 
 opinion by the diffusion of information, the 
 organization of Temperance Societies and 
 Bands of Hope, the enforcing by means of 
 vigilance committees or otherwise existing 
 legislation, as to serving drink to intoxicated 
 persons and young children, and at illegal 
 
 H 
 
93 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 hours, and the general purification of the 
 moral atmosphere. 
 
 But it is obvious that the deepest responsi- 
 bility of all rests upon the heavenly citizen ; 
 that man whose test of being " in Christ 
 before God " is, that he shall be in all crises 
 of oppression, tyranny, and temptation, " for 
 Christ before men." Upon him, above all, 
 has the commission been laid, "Take up 
 /^ the stumbling-block out of the way of My 
 people" (Isa. Ivii. 14). To shrink from it 
 is disloyalty, to falter is to sin, to resist 
 selfishly, indifferently, is to court the condem- 
 nation, " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the 
 least of these, ye did it not unto Me." What 
 then can he do .'* I think I see his duty set 
 in jewels in the words at the head of this 
 paper, " The twelfth an amethyst^ Students 
 of the word of God will recognise the 
 
Intemperance. 99 
 
 sentence as part of the singularly beautiful 
 description of the Holy City, the New Jeru- 
 salem, which he saw coming down from God 
 out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned 
 for her husband. It is the yearning gaze of 
 faith, reaching right on to the splendour of 
 the fadeless morning. "And he carried me 
 away in the Spirit," says the Apostle, " to a 
 great and high mountain, and showed me 
 that great city, the Holy Jerusalem, descend- 
 ing out of heaven from God." It is a calm 
 source of consolation and encouragement to 
 the true-hearted soldier of Jesus Christ. It 
 is like the sweet thoughts of home which 
 come flooding through the gates of a 
 quickened memory to the mind of some 
 soldier dying amid the din and smoke of 
 the battle-field, causing him to forget his 
 surroundings, and babble of home and green 
 
100 TJic Trinity of Evil. 
 
 fields. To the heart of God's workers, 
 wounded to the core by being brought con- 
 stantly into contact with life under its most 
 hideous aspect, distress in its greatest in- 
 tensity, death in its most repulsive forms, it 
 is like a refreshing shower upon parched 
 earth to read the unchangeable promise : 
 "And God shall wipe away all tears from 
 their eyes, and there shall be no more death, 
 neither sorrow, nor crying ; neither shall 
 there be any more pain, for the former things 
 are passed away." 
 
 This vision of the Church in heaven Is 
 obviously granted to the Church on earth for 
 a double purpose. First, that we may never 
 despair at the contemplation of our world, 
 darkened with sorrow and laid waste with 
 sin, for the final overthrow of all evil is 
 here distinctly manifested as a truth of pure 
 
Intemperance. 
 
 revelation; and, secondly, that we may be 
 stimulated so to labour and to pray that we 
 may accelerate the glorious event, " looking 
 for and hastmg;' not hasting unto, but 
 *' hasting;' the Day of God. 
 
 It would be beside our purpose to consider 
 the whole of this glorious vision of the New 
 Jerusalem; the language which foretells it 
 is mystic, symbolical, supernatural. But I 
 desire to emphasize one thought from the 
 inspired imagery, and I would ask all to 
 think it out for themselves. The city whose 
 streets are gold, and which needs not the 
 light of the sun or of the moon, is supported 
 upon twelve foundations, which are twelve 
 precious stones. Precious stones have ever 
 possessed in the legendary lore of all nations 
 a symbolical importance. There is not one 
 of these precious stones upon which the 
 
1 02 TJie Trinity of EviL 
 
 Heavenly City rests that is not obviously 
 intended to represent symbolically the final 
 victory of one of those regenerating prin- 
 ciples now operating in antagonism to evil. 
 I humbly submit that I am in no sense over- 
 straining an analogy, nor grasping at a fanci- 
 ful interpretation, but literally accepting the 
 teaching of the word of God by concentrat- 
 ing your attention upon one of these precious 
 stones, the twelfth and the last of the founda- 
 tions of the Heavenly City, and inquiring 
 into its nature and teaching. It says : "The 
 twelfth an amethyst." An amethyst — and 
 why an amethyst ? Put aside for the moment 
 the unbroken chain of legend which has 
 clustered round the amethyst, and which 
 corroborates the application I would make ; 
 treat it from the matter-of-fact, scholarly 
 point of view ; put imagination on one side. 
 
In tempera n ce. 103 
 
 and translate the word amethyst literally ; it 
 can bear but one interpretation — a combina- 
 tion of two familiar Greek words — " ^," not, 
 and " methtistosl' a user of strong drink. Its 
 literal common-sense translation is, " ABSTI- 
 NENCE FROM STRONG DRINK." 
 
 " The twelfth an amethyst : " The twelfth 
 regenerating principle upon which, as upon 
 a foundation-stone, the New Jerusalem alone 
 can stand, " Abstinence from strong drink ! ! " 
 What a marvellous prophecy have we here. 
 Uttered 1,200 years before the pernicious 
 art of distillation was invented, it points 
 distinctly to the peculiar and special peril 
 of these latter days and its remedy. How 
 clearly and manifestly t7'ue^ if in the New 
 Jerusalem there shall be no more death, 
 neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there 
 be any more pain ; how manifest to the 
 
104 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 meanest comprehension that one of its foun- 
 dation-stones must be the victory over that 
 ever-wasting destruction which, accompanied 
 by the sigh of hopelessness and the groan of 
 pain, is brutalising, ruining, pauperising, and 
 maddening thousands for whom Christ died, 
 and for whom Christ's followers are in a 
 large measure responsible ! 
 
 To be privileged, then, to build this twelfth 
 foundation-stone by the personal practice 
 and quiet advocacy of abstinence from strong 
 drink, is within the scope of the humblest 
 heavenly citizen. The method possesses the 
 advantage of exhibiting a constructive, not 
 a destructive, activity ; it savours rather of 
 overcoming evil with good than of pulling 
 down by aggressive warfare the strongholds 
 of Satan ; it quietly purifies the social 
 atmosphere by breathing into it a healthy 
 
Intemperance. i o 5 
 
 element, as the Eucalyptus gum-tree plmted 
 in the malarious marshes of the Roman Cam- 
 pagna neutralises the fever poison by its life- 
 giving exhalations. It would be easy to fill 
 this paper with examples of the strengthen- 
 ing, reforming power, in every kind of society, 
 of the silent witness of total abstinence on 
 the part of those who never made a platform 
 speech in their lives, and could not sustain an 
 argument as to the pathology of intemper- 
 ance. Let it be an encouragement to the 
 thousands who, in the face of opposition, 
 ridicule, and often discouragement, have been 
 quietly bearing this witness. I pray them to 
 accept the assurance that although they may 
 not possess the gift of oratory or the oppor- 
 tunity for evangeHsing the masses, they have 
 none the less been silently establishing the 
 twelfth foundation-stone of the mystic fabric. 
 
io6 The Trviity of Evil. 
 
 and "shining" (Phil. ii. 15) "as lights in the 
 world," with the soft lustre of an amethyst, 
 for God. If we had the power to penetrate 
 into the mysteries of the Master Builder's 
 manufactory, we should estimate at their 
 proper value the unnoticed, undistinguished 
 builders of the kingdom of heaven quietly 
 living and dying to save a world that 
 knows not how much its owes them. The 
 extent to which these persuasive preachers 
 of the best of all sermons — a life, prevail to 
 change currents of thought and work miracles 
 in the characters of men, is suggested in the 
 following beautiful extract from a sermon by 
 the Rev. J. C. Street, of Belfast :— 
 
 " The pages of human history are very 
 delusive. Not as yet have historians suffi- 
 ciently grasped the fundamental thought 
 that the world wants to know about the 
 
Intemperance. 107 
 
 people, and is not so much concerned about 
 kings and rulers, and the movements of 
 armies, and the intrigues of courts. Enough 
 if the names of kings and princes are recorded, 
 unless they have something to distinguish 
 them other than their rank and title. And 
 camps and courts, with their excesses and 
 frivolities, might just be left out of the record, 
 and no good thing would be missed in con- 
 sequence. But what we do want to find, 
 written in glowing records, is this — who have 
 been the real doers of the world 1 who have 
 taught new truths ? who have lived lustrous 
 lives } who have soothed human suffering ? 
 who have wrestled bravely with individual 
 and national sin } who have saved multitudes 
 from falling, strengthened the feeble knees, 
 upheld the sinking arms, put courage into 
 faint hearts, driven away famine, disease, 
 
io8 TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 crime, and immorality ? who have been co- 
 workers with God in aiding the world in its 
 effort after holiness ? To find these, any of 
 them, you will need to look most scrutinis- 
 ingly. Many of the illustrious souls you will 
 never discover. They have lived, worked 
 died, and their very names are buried. But 
 known or unknown, these are the true 
 apostles, the true representatives of God — 
 the brethren and sisters of Jesus, the priests 
 of humanity." 
 
 Thank God that amongst the ranks of 
 total abstainers and humble members of the 
 Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance societies 
 there are hundreds of such priests of 
 humanity — they judge no man, but with 
 Rom. xiv. 21 for their text, with the love 
 of Christ and humanity in their hearts, they 
 quietly pursue their way, and the wonderful 
 
Intemperance. 1 09 
 
 change of front in all ranks of society, 
 amongst clergymen, doctors, lawyers, states- 
 men, is to be attributed more to the influence 
 of the thousands of abstainers than to the 
 arguments and statistics of reformers. " I 
 cannot help thinking," said Mr. Justice 
 Hawkins at a crimeless assize at Lincoln, 
 "that a great deal of the happy condition 
 of the people here must be due to abstinence 
 from strong drink." And the close corre- 
 spondence between abstinence and national 
 prosperity may be implied from the sig- 
 nificant fact that when in 1884 the loss to 
 the Excise from a diminution in drinkin"- 
 
 o 
 
 amounted to two millions and a half, addi- 
 tional deposits to the amount of ;^2, 400,000 
 were made during the same period in the 
 Post Office Savings Bank. 
 Who, then will become an amethyst for 
 
no The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 God ? If you are weak, you will be wise to 
 become one for your own sake ; if you are 
 strong, you will be still wiser to become one 
 for the sake of the weak. It is a privilege, 
 not a command, an expedient to meet a 
 present distress, not an addition to the 
 Decalogue. The brazen serpent had proved 
 itself to be a gift of God, to be therapeuti- 
 cally worth more than all the doctors in 
 Israel, but Hezekiah " did right in the sight 
 of the Lord" when he destroyed it, seeing 
 it had become a national danger. It is an 
 unwritten law in God's court of equity that 
 it is not always right for a free and intelli- 
 gent being to do that which it is within his 
 right and his power to do. David had both 
 the right and the power to drink the water 
 won for him at the cost of blood from the 
 well of Bethlehem ; had he done so he 
 
Intemperance. 1 1 
 
 would have forfeited his identity with his 
 soldiers by availing himself of an indulgence 
 no other man could share, and which, more- 
 over, had been procured at the cost of blood. 
 Jesus had both the right and the power to 
 turn stones into bread in the wilderness; 
 had He done so He would have forfeited 
 His complete identity with His brethren in 
 humanity by availing Himself of a method 
 of sustenance beyond their reach. He had 
 both the right and the power to deaden 
 the pangs of crucifixion by the use of the 
 anodyne of alcohol and mandragora offered 
 to Him. He used His liberty in refusing, 
 that He might have fellowship with humanity 
 in suffering, and speak His seven wondrous 
 dying words from the Cross. As a Christian 
 man, a citizen of heaven, I have both the 
 right and the power to extend to myself 
 
112 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 the indulgence of using intoxicating drink. 
 If I do so, I cannot place myself by identi- 
 fication by the side of my fallen brother, 
 whose only chance of cure lies in uncom- 
 promising abstinence. If I would take him 
 by the hand, bid him fix his eyes on Jesus, 
 and crucify the flesh, I must unfetter my 
 heart and cleanse my hands by first bear- 
 ing myself the cross I am asking him to 
 take up. 
 
 For, my total abstaining brethren, if we 
 would deeply influence the souls of others 
 we must be wholly in the Master's spirit. 
 Let us beware how we conjure with His 
 name while our heart is far from Him. In 
 casting out devils — and drink is a devil 
 if ever there w^as one in solution, precipi- 
 tation, or incarnation in this world — the 
 heavenly citizen must keep in touch with 
 
Intemperance, 1 1 3 
 
 his Master ; and whether he eat or drink, 
 or abstain from eating or drinking, he must 
 do it, not for his own satisfaction but for 
 the glory of God. St. Francis de Salis is 
 said to have entered, after intense prayer, 
 the iron cage of a dangerous maniac, and 
 
 y 
 
 completely subdued him ; without tiiis con- 
 stant communion with God and intensity ; 
 and frequency in prayer, we modern exer- 
 cisers are in jeopardy of a repetition of the 
 " Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who 
 are ye?" Hidden in Him, our work as 
 Temperance reformers, though marred by 
 our imperfection, and hindered by opposition, 
 shall be memorable in God's sight, for there 
 shall be over it the mystic light which 
 gleams from the foundation-stone of the 
 Heavenly City, of which it is said, "The 
 Twelfth an Amethyst." 
 
 I 
 
"\A 
 
 I 
 
 WHAT CAA THE CLERG\ DO? 
 
 " Like people like priest." — Hosea iv. 9. 
 
 T has been said in the article upon Im- 
 purity that it is one characteristic of 
 an age of luxury to deprecate plain speaking 
 about plain sins ; to gloss over, with the 
 V meretricious tinsel of euphemism, notorious 
 
 vices that eat like a canker into the heart of 
 society ; it is one of the deceits of so-called 
 civilization to endure unblushingly the out- 
 ward manifestations of evil, and prudishly 
 to hide the head when such evils are de- 
 nounced by their proper names. Such was 
 not the custom of the fearless apostle St. 
 
Intempermice. 1 1 5 
 
 Paul, from whose pen has emanated the 
 Epistle to the Galatians ; and the plain, un- 
 varnished tale of deadly sins, enumerated 
 in the fifth chapter under the heading of 
 " works of the flesh," breathes a refreshing 
 atmosphere of candour, and encourages all 
 Christian ministers to clear themselves from 
 the imputation. 
 
 "Who dares think one thing and another tell, 
 My soul detests him as the gates of hell." 
 
 When society is ashamed to sin, it will 
 be time enough for Christian ministers to be 
 ashamed to speak of sin ; and in this article 
 we have to speak of sin — of foul, treacherous, 
 fascinating sin ; of sin which is the parent of 
 impurity, infidelity, suffering, suicide, murder ; 
 of sin that knows no distinction between rich 
 and poor, man and woman, learned and igno- 
 rant ; of sin that stamps its cursed label, 
 
Ii6 TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 like the brand of Cain, upon the besotted 
 features of men and women made in the 
 image of their God, saying — See, here are 
 those redeemed by the blood of the Cross, 
 dedicated body, soul, and spirit to the Lord, 
 and it is written in their faces that their 
 God is their belly. 
 
 It would be an easy matter to fill reams 
 of paper with statistics of our English shame. 
 They have been collected in ghastly and 
 overwhelming array by Mr. William Hoyle ; 
 they are within the reach of all ; and they 
 prove beyond a shadow of doubt that misery, 
 brutality, and crime are prevailing to a 
 most alarming extent ; that there is an evil 
 influence abroad, neutralizing every effort, 
 mocking every exertion for the promotion of 
 the well-being of the people. It would be 
 bad enough if this national destroyer con- 
 
Intemperance. 1 1 7 
 
 fined himself to binding grievous burdens 
 upon the pockets of the community ; that in 
 days when legitimate trade is depressed and 
 honest men of business are struggling hard 
 with impending poverty, he should annually 
 scatter to the winds one hundred and thirty 
 millions, which, if circulated through useful 
 branches of commerce, would impart pros- 
 perity to all ; that, of the millions of rate- 
 supported paupers, who tax so sorely the 
 resources of men of anxious toil, he should 
 claim three out of every four as his own pro- 
 duction. The mere money tax might be en- 
 dured. But from the length and breadth of 
 the land there comes a cry of human suffer- 
 ing, human agony, human death ; the most 
 fearful crimes are committed every day, — 
 brutal assaults by fathers upon their chil- 
 dren, mothers upon their infants, men upon a 
 
Ii8 TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 each other; and judges, coroners, magistrates, 
 doctors, hangmen, all give the same unvary- 
 ing testimony— strong drink is alone, they 
 say, the cause. One hundred and eighty 
 thousand persons are licensed to procure 
 their livelihood by flooding the country with 
 strong drink. These occurrences are the 
 logical consequence ; and the wealth, the 
 peace, the religion, the prosperity of this 
 great nation are slowly, but surely, going 
 down before the pestilence. The most ter- 
 lible proof of the extent to which this 
 devilish epidemic is infecting the mainspring 
 of the life of the nation, and one which can- 
 not too often be repeated, is to be found in 
 the report of the visiting justices of the West- 
 minster House of Correction, which exposes 
 the appalling fact that in one year between 
 five and six thousand women were convicted 
 
Inte7nperance. 
 
 of drunkenness in this place of punishment 
 alone. 
 
 But in spite of the publicity which is given ' 
 in the daily journals to the fruits of England's 
 national sin, the worst results of it never see 
 the light in the newspapers or the blue-book. 
 There are working for God in parts of 
 London, and other great cities, devoted ones 
 who are spending their lives in striving to 
 cast the purifying salt of the gospel of Christ 
 into the foul pool of iniquity. They could tell 
 you of the dark deeds that are done in the 
 so-called homes of the drunkard ; they could 
 tell you of the cruel blows that fall thick on 
 wife and child ; they could tell you of wife 
 and mother lying senseless from some savage 
 assault, all through the long night until dawn 
 peeps in at the window ; and the endurance, 
 the forgiveness, the hope for better things in 
 
I20 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 the heart of the poor brave woman con- 
 strains her to silence, and the outside world 
 knows nothing of her secret suffering. 
 
 Now what is the duty of the minister of 
 the gospel in conditions such as these ? I do 
 not mean to imply that the ministers of the 
 gospel have a monopoly of the responsibility 
 for the souls of those who are perishing 
 through drink : the drunkenness of England 
 is everybody's responsibility. Drunkenness 
 impoverishes the people, increases taxation, 
 limits the producing power of the nation — it 
 is, therefore, a question for the statesman ; 
 drunkenness deteriorates the race, renders 
 life less worth living by increasing its sorrows, 
 multiplying its perils, aggravating its evils — 
 it is, therefore, a question for the philanthro- 
 pist, for the pioneer of national liberty. 
 Our ears are tickled in vain by the repetition 
 
Intemperance. 
 
 of smart epigrams as to England being 
 "better free than sober," for we recollect 
 how such epigrams are annihilated by an- 
 ticipation in the words of Byron — 
 
 "Think'st thou that there is no tyranny but that 
 Of blood and chains ? The despotism of vice, 
 The weakness, the wickedness of luxury, 
 The negligence, the apathy, the evils 
 Of sensual sloth, produce ten thousand tyrants." 
 
 But drunkenness locks up the kingdom of 
 heaven, bars the channels of grace between 
 the soul of man and the life-giving Spirit of 
 God, defiles the temple of the Holy Ghost, 
 crucifies the Son of God afresh and puts Him 
 to an open shame, is earthly, sensual, devil- 
 ish ; and therefore it is pre-eminently a 
 question for the accredited shepherds of 
 the souls of men. 
 
 One of England's greatest statesmen once 
 
122 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 said, " If this evil is to be effectually dealt 
 with, you must not look to the world or the 
 legislature to take the initiative, the Church 
 of Christ must strike the blow ; " and it is we 
 who have been solemnly set apart by ordina- 
 tion to fight the battle of the King of kings, 
 who are constrained to spend and be spent 
 in liberating the souls whose cure and 
 government has been committed to us, from 
 the power of the accursed idol before whom 
 they are bowing down. When we are in- 
 different, unenthusiastic, temporizing, in the 
 presence of overwhelming evils such as these, 
 we are but caricatures — not likenesses — ot 
 our Divine Master. When we timidly hold 
 ourselves aloof from this special development 
 of the battle between heaven and hell, when 
 we take shelter behind the motto, quieta non 
 inovere^ we are as those 
 
Intemperance. 1 2 3 
 
 " Who swore the love 
 Of souls had drawn them to the Church — yet strewed 
 The path that led to hell with tempting flowers, 
 And in the ears of sinners as they took 
 The way to death they whispered peace." 
 
 Yes, it is our question ! It is our question 
 
 by the sacredness of our high calling, by the 
 
 Name we bow before ; it is our question, 
 
 because we are not reformers of society, but 
 
 physicians of souls, because with us eternity 
 
 overshadows time, because we are bound to 
 
 view man as an immortal being in peril by 
 
 sin, in pity for the miseries of which our 
 
 Master wept on Olivet, in atonement for the 
 
 guilt of which He bled on Calvary. 
 
 Now what can we as accredited ministers 
 
 do to lessen the causes, to diminish the 
 
 effects, of this torrent of evil ? I do not 
 
 believe it possible for one of us, who has 
 
 heartily realized the magnitude of the evil^ 
 
124 ^-^^^ Trinity of Evil 
 
 to kneel down before our God with the 
 prayer, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to 
 do ? " without being at once commissioned to 
 our corner of the vineyard. But this we can 
 do — we can divest our minds of prejudice, 
 we can stop our ears to those who would 
 soothe us into inaction by bidding us leave 
 the battle to the gradual influence of in- 
 creasing knowledge and refinement. We 
 can reflect upon the trifling influence know- 
 ledge and refinement have had in the past 
 in purifying the heart of sinning humanity. 
 Knowledge and refinement ! Were they 
 wanting to Charles Lamb, the poet and 
 the essayist ? and did they render less bitter 
 that pathetic wail, " From what have I fallen, 
 if the child that I remember was indeed 
 myself".? Knowledge and refinement ! Are 
 they wanting to those high-born names 
 
Intemperance, 125 
 
 which bespatter the pages of our newspapers 
 with the filth of the divorce court ? And it 
 is the testimony of the leading judge of 
 that court of Sodom, that nine out of 
 ten of the cases that come before him are 
 the results of intemperance. First, then, we 
 can set our faces as a flint against these 
 commonplaces, which do but mock the agony 
 of perishing thousands. 
 
 Again, believing that the peril of souls is 
 of more importance than the traditions of 
 society, the interests of a particular trade, 
 the platitudes of the press, the babblings of 
 shallow political triflers, we can shake our- 
 selves free from what one has well termed 
 " the devil's cobwebs of guilty custom and 
 guilty acquiescence." Thus, hitherto, we 
 have perhaps been tolerating evils rather 
 than make ourselves unpopular by waging 
 
126 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 war against them. Noiv we can become 
 aggressive ; we can constantly keep the 
 question before the notice of magistrates, 
 landowners, and the public. At times of 
 election we can show by our exertions and 
 our votes that we are in earnest. 
 
 We can engage a professional man to 
 oppose at every brewster sessions the issue 
 of fresh licences. We can add to our paro- 
 chial organization an earnest temperance mis- 
 sionary, whose one duty is to search for the 
 fallen, to encourage the waverers, to form 
 public opinion. We can shake ourselves 
 free from all complicity, by declining to sign 
 any publican's testimonial ; by refusing ever 
 to lease an acre of glebe for building pur- 
 poses without a stringent covenant to ex- 
 clude public-houses. 
 
 We shall possibly become unpopular, the 
 
Intemperance. 127 
 
 drunkards will make songs upon us, the 
 public-house world will hate us. So much 
 the better for ns. We are striking a blow 
 for Him whom the world hated before it 
 hated us. We shall be freely told that by 
 crusading against the interests of a power- 
 ful, charitable, state-protected trade, we are 
 jeopardizing the stability of the Church, and 
 alienating men from our ministry. If it 
 were so, then perish the Establishment that 
 cannot stand without such crutches. But it 
 is NOT true. The best claim the Establish- 
 ment can make upon the confidence of the 
 nation is her readiness to dare all in her 
 effort to obliterate national sins. The surest 
 reply the individual clergyman can make to 
 those who revile him for crusading against 
 vice is the life of practical, courageous, self- 
 denying usefulness, for '^cujns vita fnlgor, ejus 
 
128 The Trinity of Evil. 
 
 verba tonitrua^ I am taking it for granted 
 that in every parish there will be first, a 
 Temperance Society, and attached to it a 
 Band of Hope. Years ago the good Bishop 
 Stanley, of Norwich, spoke with a prophet's 
 utterance, and said : " I speak after much 
 reflection, and as in the presence of God : 
 I am fully persuaded that temperance so- 
 cieties will be found the great regenerators 
 of the country." Yes, and they will be found 
 also the life and soul of home mission work ; 
 they will become the nucleus of Bible classes, 
 prayer-meetings and confirmation classes. 
 Where a thorough-going temperance society 
 has been working in a parish, its effects arc 
 so marked that you are able to say, " Happy 
 are the people that are in such a case ; yea, 
 blessed are the people who have the Lord 
 for their God." And, secondly, a really good 
 
Intemperance. 1 29 
 
 Temperance Refreshment-room, — not a dingy, 
 fly-blown kennel of discomfort, but a bright, 
 cheerful, gas-lit tavern, where politics may 
 be talked, and refuge may be had from the 
 discomfort of washing-day, without the assist- 
 ance of that which men " put into their 
 mouths to steal away their brains." 
 
 I have but imperfectly indicated some of 
 the directions in which practical work may 
 be done. If any are induced by these words 
 to gird up their loins and plunge into the 
 battle, I can assure them, from practical ex- 
 perience, that an abundant reward even in 
 this world will attend them. It is a noble 
 strife, for the battle is the Lord's. Under 
 the banner of the Cross it must be fought ; 
 that banner is our lock of strength against 
 the Philistine ; without it we become as other 
 men. 
 
 K 
 
1 30 TJie Trinity of Evil. 
 
 And when blessing and success attend our 
 efforts, when returning prodigals are kneel- 
 ing at our altars ; when, co-operating with 
 the Spirit of God, we have helped to heal the 
 bitter waters of the world, self must be 
 utterly forgotten, the glory must be rendered 
 to God, and we must echo the words of 
 Elisha when he cast the salt into the bitter 
 waters of Jericho : " Thus saith the Lord, 
 / have healed these waters." 
 
 Uutler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Froine, and London. 
 
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 HIDDEN DEPTHS. A Story of Cruel Wrong. 
 
 By F. M. F. Skene. With an Introduction by W. Shepherd 
 Allen, Esq., M.P. 
 
 From the ''Methodist Times" {Edited by the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, 
 M.A.) :— 
 Ever since the great religious movement of our time — tlie movement 
 against licentiousness — began twenty years ago, we have been longing and 
 praying for some book that would ao for the Social Purity Crusade what 
 "Uncle Tom's Cabin" did for the anti-slavery movement in America. 
 We believe tliat the book has come at last. "Hidden Depths" is well 
 described as "a tale for the times." It is, of course, written by a lady, as 
 ' ' Uncle Tom's Cabin " was. No man could have described the anguish 
 of our most gigantic social iniquity, or e.xpose with sufficient wrath the 
 hideous unreality of a Christianity that calmly tolerates its existence. This 
 is the most distressing book we have ever read. We confess that we never 
 before shed so many tears over any human composition. And yet the 
 infernal darkness is lit up from time to time with the purest and brightest 
 of Divine truths. As we pass from one circle of the Inferno to anotner we 
 are never allowed to forget the unspeakable and ine.xhaustible love of God, 
 which saves us from despair. 
 
 For the first time in the history of literature, the horrors of social wrong 
 are exposed to the hght of heaven. But let no one imagine that there is 
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 Courtenay, the original heroine of this tragic story, found out so slowly. 
 And every young man should read "Hidden Depths," in order that he 
 may spurn from him with the whole strength of his manhood the base, the 
 infamous temptation, to purchase a swiftly-fleeting pleasure by sacrificing 
 the body and the soul of some deluded girl. 
 
 No sensational novel could be so full of thrilling interest, for ' ' Hidden 
 Depths" is founded upon fact. Everything stated actually took place. 
 There is no e.xaggeration. It is a chapter from real life, which is being 
 repeated every day. llie author has made most effective use of the awful 
 facts which have come under her notice. 
 
 As a mere work of art, this book exhibits remarkable qualities. We 
 have already implied that our own opinion of this work is so high that we 
 even hope it may prove to be an epoch-making book. Let all our readers 
 buy, ponder, and lend this timely work. "Called Back, " regarded even 
 from a purely literary and artistic point of view, is a very tame performance 
 in comparison with "Hidden Depths." W^ill our readers assist to secure 
 a yet wider circulation for this immeasurably superior and more important 
 book ? 
 
 London: HODDER .\nd STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row 
 
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 Young Men. By H. Sinclair Paterson, M.D. Complete 
 in One Volume. Crown 8vo, pp. 600. Cloth, 3^. 6^/. 
 
 "The facts are well selected, the setting out is clear, the argument or 
 statement is well sustained, and the style is so easy that he who runs may 
 read.— Dr. B. IV. Richardson, F.R.S. 
 
 "We have never read such able medical advice put in such charming and 
 lucid language." — Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 STUDIES IN LIFE. By H. Sinclair Paterson, 
 
 M.D. Crown 8vo, sewed, ij-. 
 
 THE HUMAN BODY and its FUNCTIONS. 
 
 By the same Author. Crown 8vo, sewed, \s. 
 
 ' ' This most useful little work. Of that which is physiological, and which 
 makes up the chief part of the volume, I can speak with unqualified praise. 
 The facts are carefully selected, the setting is clear, the argument or state- 
 ment is well sustained, and the style so easy that he who runs may read." 
 —B. IV. Richardson^M.D., F.R.S. 
 
 HEALTH STUDIES. By the same Author. Crown 
 8vo, sewed, \s. 
 
 THE FLOWER OF THE GRASSMARKET. 
 
 With Five Illustrations. Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, 
 
 "A handsomely got-up volume. The story is admirably written."— 
 Sheffield Independent. 
 
 ILLUSTRIOUS ABSTAINERS. By Frederick 
 
 Sherlock, Authors of " Heroes in the Strife, " etc. Fifth 
 Thousand. Crown 8vo, cloth, 35. dd. 
 
 "Advocates of the cause of total abstinence will be highly interested and 
 as highly edified by the perusal of a bright little volume entitled ' Illus- 
 trious Abstainers.' It is refreshing to find enumerated such personages as 
 Sir Garnet Wolseley, President Hayes, Sir Henry Thompson, Dr. Ridiard- 
 son, Sir Henry Havelock, Ehhu Burritt, and John Howard. It is an 
 excellent book."' — Illustrated London News. 
 
 London : HODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
 3 
 
BY THE REV. J. THAIN DAVIDSON, D.D. 
 
 I. 
 TALKS WITH YOUNG MEN. 
 
 Sixth Thotisand. Croivn Svo, cloth, price 3J-. 6(/. 
 
 Contents : The Glory of Young Men. — Called to a Kingdom. — 
 Wanted : a MAN ! — An Artisan, yet a Gentleman. — Putting away 
 Childish Things. — Master of One's Self.— Setting Out in Life.— Young 
 Men from the Country. — The Eyes of a Young Man Opened. — True 
 to the Religion of One's Fathers. — Better than a Sheep. — Hungry 
 Students. — The Way to Get On in the World. — Doing everything 
 thoroughly. — Starting on the Right Rails. — Beginning Well, but 
 Ending 111. — Buried with the Burial of an Ass. — The Right Sort of 
 Friend. — Companionship with Fools. — The Conclusion of the Whole 
 Matter. 
 
 "These ' talks' are remarkable for the capital selection of subjects, their 
 effective treatment and illustration, sensible advice, and personal appeals, 
 which are by turns pointed and pathetic." — Clergyman' s Magazine. 
 
 "Their style is simple and direct, their tone thoroughly healthy; while 
 the author can attain upon occasion to the height of strong and impressive 
 eloquence. " — Scotsman. 
 
 II. 
 
 FOREWARNED— FOREARMED. 
 
 Tliird Thousand. Crown %vo, cloth, 3j'. 6c/. 
 
 Contents : A Birthright Bargained Away. — Good to Bear the Yoke 
 in Youth. — Pampered in Youth, Ruined in the Prime. — A Heart not 
 Fixed. — Riches Gotten not by Right. — Pious Patriotism. — Sleeping 
 Under the Sermon. — Destroyed by Prosperity. — Profession without 
 Practice. — Early Cut Off. — Breakers Ahead.— Feeding on Ashes. — 
 The Way of Transgressors. — The Shipwreck at Ezion-Geber. — Separ- 
 ated ; and no Tears at the Parting. — Half-hearted ; and therefore a 
 Failure. — An Excellent Spirit. — A Young Man come to Himself. — 
 God our Hope in Youth. — Young Man, Arise ! 
 
 " Weighty counsels. Dr. Davidson is remarkably at home in talks with 
 young men. His words glow with an intense earnestness which demands 
 and obtains attention from his readers. These lectures must have been 
 grand in the hearing ; they are really a fine series of sermons, without the 
 sermonic form. They make a handsome substantial volume." — Sword and 
 Trowel. 
 
 ' ' To young men we would specially recommend this useful, earnest, and 
 interesting book. They will find themselves not preached to but talked 
 with, and that they have in Mr. Davidson a friend wise, tender, and true. 
 Fathers could not do better than place this excellent volume in the hands of 
 their sons at once." — Methodist Recorder. 
 
 London : RODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Pate.rnoster Row. 
 
 4 
 
THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 INDICATED BY ITS HISTORICAL EFFECTS. By 
 
 Richard S. Storrs, D.D., LL.D., of Brooklyn. Third Edition, 
 
 royal 8vo, 6s. 
 "The facts are arranged in luminous order, and set forthwith fervour 
 and eloquence. The union of close, cogent reasoning and eloquent speech 
 is remarkable.' — The Spectator. 
 
 RELIGION IN HISTORY AND IN THE 
 
 LIFE OF TO-DAY. By A. M. Fairbairn, D.D., Author of 
 "Studies in the Life of Christ," etc. Fourth Thousand, cloth, is.6d. 
 
 " His clear and closely reasoned thought finds utterance in clear and well- 
 knit speech." — Academy. 
 
 PLAIN PROOFS OF THE GREAT FACTS 
 
 OF CHRISTIANITY. For the Help of Minds Perplexed with 
 Difficulties. By Rev. F. R. Wynxe, M.A. Popular Edition. 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, is. 6d. 
 
 " Nothing more telling, striking, powerful, on the great subject of Chris- 
 tian evidence has come into our hands for many a day." — Daily Review. 
 
 THE GROUNDS OF THEISTIC AND 
 
 CHRISTIAN BELIEF. By George P. Fisher, D.D., 
 LL.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College, Author 
 of " The Reformation," etc. 8vo, ioj-. 6d. 
 
 " He has executed his task with much ability, learning, tact, and judg- 
 ment. The style is fluent, clear, and easy throughout, so that this volume 
 is absolutely pleasant reading. We repeat that Dr. Fisher has produced 
 what we think the most convenient handbook of the whole subject we have 
 seen. " — Lito-ary Churchman. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCEPTI- 
 CISM. By Rev. A. G. Girdlestone, Vicar of All Saints', 
 Clapham. Crown Svo, 3^-. 6d. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN'S PLEA AGAINST 
 
 MODERN UNBELIEF. A Handbook of Christian Evidence. 
 By the Rev. Prof. R. A. Redford, M.A., LL.B. 'js. 6d. 
 
 ' ' A volume both interesting in itself and calculated to be of very import- 
 ant service to those whose duty it may be to present Christian evidences to 
 others. The reader will find complete statements of the general arguments 
 from miracles, from prophecy, and from history, with a very lengthy and 
 able chapter upon the ' Authority of the Canon.' He brings to this w^ork 
 a mind thoroughly conversant with the literature and philosophy of his 
 subject, and a clear and agreeable style." — Guardian. 
 
 London : HODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
 5 
 
FAITHFUL SERVICE. Sketches of Christian 
 
 Women. By Mary Pryor Hack. Crown 8vo, cloth, fj. 
 
 Contents : Darcy Lady Maxwell— Ruth Clark — Sophie Zeller — 
 Sarah B. Upton — Sarah B. Judson — Priscilla Johnston — Margaret 
 Foreman — Eliza Fletcher. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WOMANHOOD. By Mary Pryor 
 Hack. Third Thousand. Elegantly bound. Crown 8vo, $s. 
 
 ' ' We know no more suitable present for a young lady than this charming 
 book, with its sketches of Mary Fletcher, Elizabeth, last Duchess of Gordon, 
 Ann Backhouse, Frances Ridley Havergal, and others. It will be a very 
 fountain of inspiration, and encouragement to other good women." — 
 Sheffield Itidependeiit. 
 
 CONSECRATED WOMEN. By Mary Pryor 
 Hack. Fifth Thousand, Handsomely bound. Crown 8vo, 
 cloth, 5^. 
 " The memorials are all deeply interesting, bright, and vivid. " — Freeman. 
 " Some of these brief biographies are deeply interesting." — Record. 
 " The stories of such philanthropic women are profoundly touching." — 
 Spectator. 
 
 SELF-SURRENDER. A Second Series of " Conse- 
 crated Women." By Mary Pryor Hack, Third Thousand, 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth elegant. 5^. 
 
 "A most delightful book, written by a woman, about women, and for 
 women — though it may be read by men with equal pleasure and profit. 
 Each of the eleven chapters contains in brief the life, history, and work of 
 some sister who was made perfect either through service or suffering." — 
 Christian. 
 
 LIFE'S BATTLES IN TEMPERANCE 
 
 ARMOUR. An Autobiography. By Thomas Whittaker. 
 Second Edition. With Portrait. Crown 8vo, 'js. 6d. 
 
 "It is full of pith, and it sparkles in every page with native wit and 
 humour. It is a record of moral heroism not often paralleled, and it is 
 entertaining to the last degree." — Leeds Mercury. 
 
 "Mr, Whittaker had a good story to tell, and has told it well," — 
 Temperance Record. 
 
 London : HODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row, 
 
 6 
 
NEW BOOK BY MR. J. B. GO UGH. 
 
 Ill dcniy Zvo, price 5^., zoith Tivelve Choice Engravings. 
 Fifth Thousand. 
 
 PLATFORM ECHOES. Leaves from my Note-Book 
 of Forty Years. Illustrated by Anecdotes. Incidents, Personal 
 Experiences, Facts, and Stories, drawn from the Humour and 
 Pathos of Life. By J. B. GouGH. 
 
 ' ' The author's influence over vast audiences can be no secret to any one 
 who has made himself acquainted with these chapters, which abound in apt 
 illustrations and in anecdotes both humorous and pathetic, drawn in great 
 part from personal experience, and introduced in a homely but effective 
 manner. Not a little wisdom and some practical teaching is involved in 
 Mr. Gough's ' facts and stories,' which however are certainly not the less 
 amusing on this account. The volume is accompanied by some excellent 
 woodcut illustrations." — Daily News. 
 
 " It is teeming with thrilling incidents, experiences, and facts, and will 
 make for itself a place in our libraries, not merely as a collection of enter- 
 taining anecdotes, but chiefly on account of the powerful lessons brought 
 home with each incident. Our temperance friends will find this book most 
 helpful to them." — Methodist Times. 
 
 " It will certainly take rank as the most attractive temperance book of 
 the season, and should command a wide circulation." — Temperance Record. 
 
 " It would be impossible to exaggerate the opulence of the volume in 
 humorous, pathetic, and tragic anecdote. " — Christian Leader. 
 
 " It is a work which shows the prince of temperance orators at his best, 
 and will make an admirable gift-book. Every page is lit up with picturesque 
 passages, sparkling with humour, and full of vivid interest. We may add 
 that the publishers have produced an exceedingly handsome volume, paper, 
 type, illustrations, and binding being aUke admirable," — Church of Eng- 
 land Temperance Chronicle. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW; or, Gleanings 
 
 from my Life Work. Comprising : Personal Experiences, 
 Anecdotes, Incidents, Reminiscences ; gathered from Thirty-seven 
 Years' Experience on the Platform, and among the People at 
 Home and Abroad. 8vo, cloth, 3^. 6d. Thirteenth Thousand. 
 
 • ' To say that ' Sunlight and Shadow ' is an interesting book conveys 
 little meaning. Containing much that is descriptive of the lives of great 
 men of this country and of America, and brimming over with anecdotal 
 illustration, presented with consummate tact, its pages are engrossing to a 
 degree seldom attained." — Daily Review. 
 
 London : RODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. With an 
 
 Introduction by the Right Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter, D.D., 
 Lord Bishop of Ripon. Sumptuously bound in cloth. Crown 
 folio, price 25J-. 
 
 " A book of great beauty and high artistic value. Messrs. Hodder and 
 Stoughton have produced one of the finest and most attractive Christmas 
 books of the season. It is imperial quarto strongly bound, and beautifully 
 illuminated externally. The text of the Sermon on the Mount is finely 
 engrossed within decorative borders, each page being a specimen of true 
 art. There are besides a large number of excellent engravings by various 
 well-known artists. It would be difficult to over-praise the sumptuous 
 volume. ' ' — Scotsman. 
 
 OUR COLLECTS, EPISTLES, AND GOS- 
 PELS. Twelve Meditations for the Months of the Year. By 
 the Very Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D., Dean of Chester, Author of 
 "The Companions of St. Paul," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth, y. 6d. 
 
 CLASSIFIED GEMS OF THOUGHT. From 
 
 the Great Writers and Teachers of all Ages. In convenient 
 form for use as a Dictionary of ready reference on Religious Sub- 
 jects, With full Indices. By the Rev. F. B. Proctor, M.A., 
 Author of "How Readest Thou?" etc. "With a Preface by the 
 Rev. Henry Wage, D.D., Prebendary of St. Paul's, Principal 
 of King's College, London, etc. 8i6 pp., royal 8vo, cloth, lo^. 6d. 
 
 "It is a treasury of things new and old: ihustrations, readings, papers, 
 sermons, notes, suggestions, condensed narratives, adaptations, analogies, 
 analyses, and digests of topics from many a learned volume. And the 
 attempt has been to make it as readable and as attractive to the general 
 reader as a magazine. There are in it about three thousand subjects, drawn 
 from ancient and modern, English and foreign sources. 
 
 The Rev. Principal Wace in his Preface says: — "This work is an 
 attempt to render more generally accessible some of the resources of 
 modern literature on the most important of all subjects. A glance at its 
 pages will be its best justification, as they will at once show how wide is 
 the range from which such ' Gems of Thought ' can be drawn, and what 
 valuable treasures can be thus collected. No slight acknowledgment then 
 is due to any one who, like the editor of the present work, has not only 
 read widely in both old and modern books, but who has selected the 
 thoughts which seem to him the choicest gems in each, and has stored 
 them up for the use of others. The volume will, I believe, as a whole, serve 
 the excellent purposes which the editor explains in his introduction. It is 
 specially directed to points in which the central revelation of all ages meets 
 the difficulties and wants of our day, and its compilation has been governed 
 bv an earnest desire to promote the faith and obedience of Christ." 
 
 London : HODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row, 
 
THE ANGLICAN PULPIT OF TO-DAY. 
 
 Containing Forty Short Biographies and Forty Sermons of the 
 Leading Preachers of the Day. Crown 8vo, cloth, 'js. 6d. 
 
 This vohime is intended to form an introduction to the Anglican 
 preacher of to-day. It contains typical sermons by forty of the leading 
 preachers of the Church. Many of these sermons are authorized and 
 revised by the authors, and to each is prefixed a life of the preacher, 
 not seldom containing facts hitherto unpublished. 
 
 NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL 
 
 WORLD. By Professor Henry Drummond, F.R.S.E., 
 F.G.S. Seventeenth Edition. Fiftieth Thousand. Crown 8vo 
 cloth, 7J-. bd. 
 
 " The extraordinary success of the work is due to its merits. Its form 
 and its leading ideas are quite original ; it is one of the most suggestive 
 books we have ever read ; its style is admirable." — British Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 ' ' One of the most impressive and suggestive books on religion that we 
 have read for a long time." — The Spectator. 
 
 THE CITY OF GOD. A Series of Discussions in 
 Religion. By A, M. Fairbairn, D.D., Principal of Airedale 
 College. 8vo. Second Edition, 'js. 6d. 
 
 ' ' We have read many of the truly brilliant passages of this volume with 
 thrilling delight. The theology is orthodox, the logic is accurate, and the 
 learning pvoiound." —Ecc/esiastical Gazette. 
 
 THE JOY OF THE MINISTRY. An endeavour 
 to increase the efficiency and deepen the happiness of pastoral 
 work. By the Rev. F. R. Wynne, M.A., Author of ** Spent in 
 the Service." Crown 8vo, ^s. 6d. 
 
 London : HODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
 9 
 
JUST IN TIME ; or, Howard Clarion's Rescue. 
 
 By Mrs. G. S. Reaney. Crown 8vo, 5j-, 
 
 "A thrilling story told in Mrs. Reaney's best style."— Family Church- 
 man. 
 
 "A thoroughly bright and pleasing work." — Rock. 
 
 "An excellent story, gracefully told, true to hfe, and full of practical 
 suggestiveness." — Leeds Mercury. 
 
 DAISY SNOWFLAKE'S SECRET. A Story of 
 English Home Life. By Mrs. G. S. Reaney. Crown 8vo, 
 cloth, elegantly bound, 3^. (id. 
 
 " Winning in style, pure and earnest in tone, and of commanding in- 
 terest." — Daily Review. 
 
 IN THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. By Old 
 
 Boomerang. Author of " The Pioneer of a Family," "Launch- 
 ing Away," etc. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, gilt edges, 5J-. 
 
 THE SISTERS OF GLENCOE ; or, Letitia's 
 
 Choice. By Eva Wynne. Twenty-first Thousand. Crown Svo, 
 cloth elegant, 5^-. 
 
 ' ' Its life pictures are skilfully drawn, and the most wholesome lessons are 
 enforced with fidelity and power." — Temperance Record. 
 
 " An admirable story, illustrating in a most effective manner the mischief 
 arising from the use of intoxicating liquors." — Rock. 
 
 THE NATION'S VICE. The Claims of Temper- 
 ance on the Christian Church. By R. B. Grindrod, M.D., 
 Author of "Bacchus." Crown Svo, ^s. 
 
 " A thoroughly substantial and exceedingly useful book. Almost every 
 phase of the argument is effectively dealt with by Dr. Grindrod." — Tef?i- 
 ferance Record. 
 
 London : HODDER and STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row. 
 
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